The Mysterious Mr. Miller

But he was dead, and I had, rather unwisely perhaps, accepted a curious responsibility. Even the money he had placed in my charge might be the proceeds of some theft!

That night I arranged with a neighbouring undertaker that the remains of the stranger should be taken away on the following night when the whole house was asleep, a service for which I received the heartfelt gratitude of Mrs Gilbert.

About seven o’clock the next evening when I returned from the club, Miss Gilbert met me excitedly in the hall, and asked whether I would mind stepping into her mother’s sitting-room for a moment.

Seated within, I found a tall, dark-haired, sweet-faced girl in neat black who looked at me with shy inquiry as I entered. I saw she was very beautiful. Her delicately moulded features were perfect, and upon her cheeks was the fresh bloom of youth. I judged her to be about twenty-five, with slim, narrow-waisted, graceful figure, eyes of soft dark brown, well-defined brows and tiny shell-like ears. Her air and manner was of the chic Parisienne, rather than the Londoner. The instant our gaze met I saw that she was a woman of exquisite sweetness – perhaps one of the most attractive I had ever seen in all my wide wanderings over the face of the globe.

“This lady desires to see you, Mr Leaf,” explained the landlady’s daughter. “She has called with regard to our friend, Signor Massari.”

I bowed to her, and as I did so she said quickly in English: —

“I am in active search of Signor Massari, and have come post-haste across Europe in order to find him. This lady says he has been here, but has left. You, I understand, speak Italian and have had several conversations with him?”

I glanced quickly at Miss Gilbert. She had not told the visitor the sad truth, therefore I was compelled to sustain the fiction that the dead man had left.

The landlady’s daughter, apparently unable to further evade her visitor’s eager questions, excused herself and left us alone together.

The instant she had gone the visitor rose with a quick frou-frou of silken underskirts, and closing the door turned to me with a deep earnest look, saying in a low voice scarcely above a whisper: —

“Let me confess the truth, sir! I am in a most deadly peril, and yet utterly defenceless. I have come direct from Rome in order to overtake the man who has called himself Massari. I must find him, at all hazards. If he chooses to speak – to tell the truth – then he can save my life. If not, I’m lost. Will you help me to discover him? Perhaps you know where he has gone? I throw myself upon your sympathy – upon your mercy. See!” she cried hoarsely, with a wild look in her beautiful eyes, for she was indeed desperate, “I am begging of you, a perfect stranger, begging for my freedom, for my woman’s honour – nay for my life!”

I stood before her stunned.

What could I reply? What would you have replied in such circumstances?

Chapter Three

Gives some Explanations

Her voice was soft and refined. She was evidently a lady.

The mysterious stranger had held the secret which might liberate her, yet he had carried it with him to the grave!

Who was he? Who was she?

The situation was certainly one of the most difficult in which a man could find himself. Miss Gilbert, in order to conceal the fact that a death had occurred in her boarding-house, had pretended that Massari had left. I saw, however, that the pale-faced girl before me was desperate, and felt convinced that the melancholy truth should be revealed to her.

The man’s death sealed her doom. She had made that entirely plain to me.

I now distinguished that her dress was dusty, her dark hair slightly dishevelled, and she bore traces of long travel. She had evidently, on arrival from the Continent, come straight from Charing Cross out to Shepherd’s Bush. Therefore, by some secret means, she knew of Massari’s intention of hiding himself at Mrs Gilbert’s.

“You do not reply,” she said, in a voice full of reproach. “Do you really refuse to render me assistance, sir? Remember, I am a helpless woman who begs her life of you. You have seen and spoken with that man. Where is he now?”

For a moment I hesitated. Then seeing that she must sooner or later know the truth I drew my breath and said: —

“Come, follow me.” And opening the door we ascended the stairs.

“Ah!” she cried excitedly. “He is still here! That woman lied when she told me he had gone, eh? He is still in the house!”

I made no reply, but went on, she following closely behind.

Then a few moments later, having gained the top landing, I threw open the door of the darkened chamber of death and drew aside the curtains.

She dashed to the bed and tore the sheet from the dead, white face.

Then she staggered back as though she had received a blow.

“My God!” she cried. “Too late! —too late!”

Dull, dazed, she stood there, with the stare of blank despair in her eyes and pale as ashes. The dead white face seemed to wear a smile – the smile of cheerful resignation, as though his body had parted with its spirit in gladness and in triumph.

For a little while she stood stock-still and speechless – the living dead! Suddenly – ah! it is nothing in the telling; one should have heard and seen to realise – suddenly there welled up from the depths of her heart the sigh of its aching, the sob of its breaking. Then she shrieked with the ghastly laughter of despair. Then she lashed out to a cursing of the dead man and all his deeds; and her execrations were the most shocking because they proceeded from the tongue of a sweet-mouthed woman.

Of a sudden her eyes fell upon the stranger’s two portmanteaux, and dashing across she knelt to open them.

“No,” I said quietly, “I cannot permit you to touch anything there.”

“You cannot permit —you!” she cried, facing me.

“And who, pray, are you? Have I not more right to know what he has here than you?”

And with a sudden wrench she broke the hasp of the weak, foreign-made lock, and next instant turned the whole of the contents, clothes and papers, out upon the floor.

Quickly she searched among the quantity of papers, as though looking for something. Yet she was disappointed.

I took up several of the folded documents and found that they were bonds and other securities. It almost seemed as though the mysterious Massari had fled at an instant’s warning and taken all the valuables he had at hand.

The second portmanteau resisted her efforts to break it open, therefore I handed her the key. If, as she said, that man had held her future in his hands, she certainly had a right to look through what he had left behind.

In her eagerness she tossed the papers hither and thither, now pausing to scan a letter and now breaking open a sealed envelope and hastily ascertaining the contents.

“No,” she cried hoarsely at last, turning fiercely to where the dead body lay. “You have left no written record. Brute! coward! assassin!” she hissed between her teeth, shaking her fist in the dead man’s face. “You refused to give me my freedom – to clear my honour – you laughed in my face – you who knew the truth but refused to speak!”

The scene was terrible, the living execrating the dead. I took her by the arm and tried to lead her away. But she shook me off, crying: —

“He has died of the terrible disease with which God had afflicted him. He knew, too well, that after his death I should be helpless and defenceless. He was wealthy, but what did all his wealth serve him – compelled to fly at night and hide himself here, hoping that I should not discover him. He little dreamed that I knew of his hiding-place.”

“Then he could have cleared you of some false charge, had he been so inclined?” I inquired, hoping that she would reveal the truth to me.

“Yes. A foul dastardly charge has been made against me – one of the cruellest and blackest that can be laid against a woman,” she answered. “By a word he could have established my innocence. He knew I was innocent, yet he refused – he laughed in my face, and told me that he would not lift a little finger to help either me or my father.”

“Why not?”

“Because the establishment of my innocence would have given me my happiness.”

“And he denied it to you. He had a motive, I suppose?”

“Yes – oh yes!” she said. “Even my tears did not move him. I went upon my knees and begged him to speak, but he was obdurate. That was eight days ago. And how soon has Fate overtaken him! Two days later he was compelled to fly in secret in order to avoid arrest, and to-day he is lying there dead – his lips, alas! sealed.”

“Ah! unfortunately,” I sighed, “he can no longer bear witness on your behalf, miss – I have not the pleasure of your name?” I said, hesitating purposely.

“Miller – Lucie Miller,” she replied. “And yours?”

“Godfrey Leaf.”

“Yes, Mr Leaf, it is unfortunate for me,” she said, with a dark look of desperation. “I am a doomed woman!”

“Oh, no, you must not speak like that,” I urged. “Surely the charge against you is not so very serious!” To me it seemed impossible that such a sweet-faced girl should have any grave imputation against her.

“I have enemies, bitter, relentless enemies,” was her brief response. She had grown a little calmer, and I had replaced the sheet over the cold, lifeless countenance of the man who had refused to tell the world the truth and thus save her.

“Have you travelled from Rome alone?” I inquired.

“No. I had a companion,” she answered, but did not satisfy me whether it was a male or female.

“You live in Rome, perhaps?” I asked, for I saw that she had a cosmopolitan air which was not that of an English-bred woman.

“No. I generally live in Leghorn.”

“Ah! in Tuscany. I know Leghorn quite well – the Brighton of Italy, a very gay place in summer. Pancaldi’s at four o’clock in the season is always bright and amusing.”

“You really know Pancaldi’s?” she exclaimed, brightening. “Only fancy! We have so very few English in Leghorn. They prefer Vallombrosa or the Bagni di Lucca. Indeed an Englishman in Leghorn, beyond the shipping people, is quite a rarity.”

“And this man Massari – it was not his real name?” I said.

“No. But I regret that I am not permitted to tell you who he really was. He was a person very well-known in Italy – a person of whom you read frequently in the newspapers. That is all I may tell you.”

“Well, really, Miss Miller, all this is very mystifying,” I said. “Why did he come here?”

“Because he thought that he would be able to live in hiding. He feared lest I might follow him.”

“But you said that he also feared arrest.”

“That is so. He was compelled to escape. His enemies laid a trap for him, just as he did for my father and myself.”

“But why did he refuse to give you back your happiness by clearing you of the charge? To me it seems almost incredible that a man should thus treat an innocent woman.”

“Ah! Mr Leaf, you didn’t know him. He was one of the most unscrupulous and hard-hearted men in the whole of Italy. Every soldo he possessed bore upon it the blood and tears of the poor. He lent money at exorbitant interest to the contadini, and delighted to ruin them from the sheer love of cruelty and oppression. Those papers there,” and she pointed to the securities she had scattered upon the dingy carpet, “and every franc he possessed are accursed.”

And he had given me the sum of two hundred pounds for accepting the responsibility of his funeral and of the sealed packet.

“You mean that he was, by profession, a moneylender?”

“Oh, dear no. He lent money merely for the purpose of ruining people. He was heartless and cruel by nature, and if a man committed suicide – as many did because he had ruined them – he would laugh at the poor fellow as a fool, and take the very bread from the mouths of the widow and family.”

“The brute! A Jew, I suppose?”

“No. The people believed him to be one, but he was not. In his methods he was more fiendish than any Hebrew. He did not lend money for profit, but in order to bring misery to others. The one kind, generous action he might have performed towards me, the giving back to me my honour, he refused. To him, it was nothing; to me, everything. It meant my life.”

And I saw in her eyes a desperate look that deeply impressed me.

“I wish you would be more explicit, Miss Miller. If I can be of any service to you or assist you in any way, I shall be delighted. Really I don’t like to hear you talk as you do. If you are in a quandary there must be some way out of it, and two heads, you know, are always better than one.”

She sighed, and raising her fine eyes to mine, replied: —

“Ah! I fear, Mr Leaf, that your kind assistance would be unavailing, although I thank you all the same. That man yonder held my life in his hand. One word from him would have saved me. But he refused, and before I could overtake him Death had claimed him.”

“He told me that he felt no regret in having to die,” I said.

“Of course not. Had he lived the truth would have been revealed, and he would have dragged out his remaining days in a convict prison. I know that truth – a strange and startling one – a truth which would assuredly amaze and astound you. But he is dead,” she added, “and though he refused to give me back my honour and my life I will never seek a vendetta upon one whom the Avenger has already claimed – one whom God Himself has justly judged.”

And together we turned, and left the silent chamber wherein lay the remains of the man who was a mystery.

Chapter Four

Arouses Certain Suspicions

Sammy chanced to be out, therefore I conducted her to our cosy little sitting-room at the back of the house on the first floor, and after a few minutes she had so far recovered from the shock of seeing her dead enemy that she seated herself and allowed me to talk further to her.

I told her of the request which Massari had made respecting his epitaph, and of his fearless encounter with death.

“Naturally. He was unfortunate, and he wished to die,” she said, quite coolly. “Had he lived he would only have fallen into disgrace and been placed in the criminal dock.”

“Towards me he was very pleasant, though not very talkative.”

“Ah! you have had a narrow escape,” she said, with her dark eyes fixed upon me mysteriously.

“A narrow escape? What of, pray? I don’t understand you.”

“Of course not,” she answered, smiling strangely.

“Tell me more,” I said eagerly. “This statement of yours is very puzzling, and has aroused my curiosity. Do you mean that Massari had some sinister design upon me?”

She fixed her dark eyes upon me for a few moments, then said: —

“You were once, about three years ago, in Pisa – at the Minerva, I think?”

I stood before her open-mouthed. What did this sweet-faced woman know regarding that closed page of my life’s history?

Mention of that hotel in the quiet old marble-built city where stands the wonderful Leaning Tower recalled to me a certain unsavoury incident that I would fain have forgotten, yet could never put from me its remembrance.

“Well?” I asked at last, summoning all my strength to remain calm. “What of it?”

She was silent for a moment, gazing straight into my eyes.

“Something occurred there, did it not?” she said slowly.

“And he knew of that?”

Then I recollected how the dying man had fixed his eyes upon me with that hard, intense look; how his gaze had followed me about the room, and I saw his fierce hatred and deep regret that while he himself was dying I still lived.

Perhaps he had intended that our positions should be reversed, but God had willed it otherwise.

Did Lucie Miller herself know what had taken place in Pisa?

I asked her point-blank, but from her replies I became reassured that she was entirely ignorant of the real facts. She knew that some extraordinary incident that concerned me had taken place there – that was all.

By what means had the stranger obtained knowledge of my secret? To me, her allegation that I had had some narrow escape seemed incredible. I could not discern sufficient motive. Yet she repeated her allegation, adding: —

“His motives were always hidden ones.”

“Well,” I declared, “to me the thing is really beyond credence. I can’t see what I can have done to injure him. Was it in connection with the affair in Pisa, do you think?”

“I believe it was, but of course I’m not quite certain,” was her somewhat vague reply. Perhaps she desired to mislead me.

The position was certainly a strange one. Had the dead man been a secret enemy of both of us?

The sweet face had changed as she sat with her neat patent-leather shoe stretched forth upon the shabby hearth-rug. It was even paler and more serious, while her eyes were fixed upon mine with a curious, intense gaze that caused me surprise.

“You have fortunately escaped,” she said mechanically, after a brief pause. “I am, however, a victim, and doomed.”

And sighing her eyes fell upon the carpet.

“But you will be able to clear yourself of this charge against you, Miss Miller – you must – you will. If the brute refused to clear you, then you must find other means. Why did he refuse? What had he to gain by refusing?”

“Everything,” was her low, hoarse answer. “If he had spoken the truth and cleared me then a terrible vengeance would have fallen upon him. But death overtook him instead.”

I wondered whether I should tell her of the commission he had entrusted to me, but decided that, for the present, I would say nothing.

“Are you returning at once to Italy?” I inquired presently, for our mutual connection with the dead man had aroused my curiosity concerning her. I longed to know who she was, and who was the man who lay in that darkened upstairs room.

“I hardly know what my future movements are to be,” she replied. “I came post-haste to London to face him and to compel him to speak and clear me of the foul imputation against me. Now that all is in vain – now that the future holds no hope for me – I don’t know what I shall do.”

“You have friends in England, of course?”

“I have an aunt living in the country. Perhaps I shall go to her. I must first hear what my father counsels, now that our enemy is dead.” Then after a pause she raised her eyes to mine and added: “I think you are acquainted with a certain lady named Hardwick, are you not?”

I started. She seemed to be aware of all my private affairs. It was extraordinary. Surely these people had not spied upon me?

“I knew a lady of that name some time ago.”

She smiled mysteriously, for she had watched my face and seen my expression of surprise.

“And the recollection of her is not a very pleasant one, eh?”

“How did you know that?” I asked quickly.

She shrugged her shoulders with that foreign air which showed her to be a born cosmopolitan and laughed, but made no reply. That she knew more concerning me than she admitted was quite plain.

“And what has the woman Hardwick to do with the affair?” I asked in surprise.

“She is not your friend,” she answered, in a low, serious voice. “You have seen her lately, I presume.”

“I met her last while at supper at the Savoy about a fortnight ago,” I said. “She then pressed me to go and dine with her.”

“Of course. Hitherto you had not seen her for several months.”

“No. She has been abroad, I understand.”

“Yes. In Italy.”

“And she invited me with some sinister motive?” I exclaimed in surprise.

“She wishes to resume your acquaintance, and to regain your confidence. It was, I think, part of an intrigue.”

“I refused her invitation,” I said. “I had long ago discovered that she was not my friend.”

“That is fortunate. Otherwise you might have cause to deeply regret it. The woman is an adventuress of the worst type – a fact which I daresay you are already aware of.”

“I discovered it by mere accident, and for that reason I dropped her acquaintance. But what you have told me is utterly astounding.”

“That man’s end relieves you of all further anxiety, yet at the same time it dooms me to shame – and to death!” she remarked hoarsely, rising suddenly to her feet with quick resolution.

I made no remark. What she had revealed to me was so bewildering. That the woman, before me had interests in common with myself was now plain. She was in deep distress – in fear of what the dark future held in store for her, abandoned by the one man who could clear her of this mysterious allegation, so infamous that she dare not repeat it to me, a stranger.

Her grace and beauty, too, were assuredly incomparable. Truly she was one of the prettiest women I had ever met – yet at the same time the most despairing. I saw tragedy in her countenance – the shadow of death was in her eyes, and I stood before her silent and fascinated by the mystery which enveloped her.

“I must go, Mr Leaf,” she said. “I must telegraph to my father and inform him of the contretemps which has occurred. He will direct me how to act. But before I go I would like to thank you very very much for your great kindness and sympathy towards me. I am sure that, if possible, you would seek to assist me. But it is out of the question – entirely out of the question. What must be, must be.”

And she put out her small hand to me in farewell.

“There must, I am sure, be some way in which to evade this misfortune which you apprehend,” I said. “At any rate we may meet again, may we not? Where shall you stay in London?”

“I really don’t know,” she said, in a vague, blank manner which showed that she wished to evade me, fearing perhaps lest I might make unwelcome inquiries concerning her. “As to our meeting again, I hardly think such a course would be wise. My friendship might imperil you still further, therefore let us end it now, as pleasantly as it has commenced.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You will know what I mean, Mr Leaf, some day,” she answered, with a strange look in her dark eyes. Then sighing she added: “Farewell.”

And I was compelled to take the hand she offered. Refusing to tell me where she lived, and holding out no fixed promise of returning, she at once went down with me to the front door.

After I had bowed farewell and she had descended the steps, I closed the door, and was returning along the hall when suddenly Sammy emerged from the dining-room, where he had evidently been standing, and facing me with a strange, serious expression upon his features, such as I had never seen there before, asked: —

“Godfrey! what’s that woman doing here – in this house? Do you know who she is? By Jove, you don’t, that’s certain, otherwise you would never have let her cross this threshold. Why has she dared to come here?”

Chapter Five

The Villa Du Lac

“Look here, Sammy!” I exclaimed, when we were together in our little den a few minutes later, “what’s the good of beating about the bush? Why don’t you tell me straight out what you have against her?”

“My dear fellow! surely it isn’t for me to cast a slur upon any lady’s character. I merely warn you that she has a very queer reputation – that’s all.” And he stretched out his legs and blew a cloud of smoke from his lips.

“Every woman seems to enjoy a reputation more or less queer nowadays,” I declared. “Have you ever come across a woman about whom something detrimental was not whispered by her enemies? I haven’t.”

“Perhaps you’re right there, Godfrey,” was my friend’s reply. “You discovered the truth concerning Ina Hardwick, and that was a hard blow for you, eh? But didn’t I give you a hint long before which you refused to take?”

“And now you give me a hint regarding Lucie Miller. Well, tell me straight out – who and what she is.”

“First tell me why she came to see you.”

“She certainly didn’t come to see me,” I protested. “She came to see the stranger – she’s a friend of the dead man’s.”

He turned, knit his brows, and stared straight into my face.

“A friend of Massari’s! Who told you so?”

“She did.”

Sammy smiled incredulously. He was a man who had passed through life having singularly escaped all the shadows that lie on it for most men; and he had far more than most what may be termed the faculty for happiness.

“H’m. Depend upon it she came here more on your account than to visit the mysterious Italian.”