The Mysterious Mr. Miller

“Now, Gavazzi, who had narrowly watched the situation, daily expected His Excellency to fly from Italy. He knew that his enemies had gained the ascendency, and that revelations to King Humbert were only a matter of hours. Therefore the moment his master had left Rome he went out to Tivoli and discharged all the servants at the villa, paying them all off handsomely. On the following day, as I understand from a letter I have found among my father’s papers, he went out there on the pretext of a necessity of obtaining certain important documents, taking Alice with him. He entered the villa with his key, and when in the study suddenly demanded that she should reveal the spot where the notes had been concealed. Being loyal to Nardini, whom she had promised to marry, she refused. They were alone in the great house, and she, in defiance of him, declared that she would tell the man who was to be her husband. A violent scene then ensued. He threatened her and she grew furious, when of a sudden she fell back in a dead faint. He laughed, and awaited her recovery, still hoping to obtain from her the secret of the Minister’s hoard. He waited until, in alarm, he saw a sudden change in her. She grew white and rigid. She suffered from a weak heart from her birth, and died of syncope. Poor Alice! the excitement had proved fatal!”

“But I can’t understand this fellow Himes. Why is he so full of a fierce revenge?” asked Sammy, whose manner towards Lucie was now entirely changed. He saw that she had been the victim of a scoundrel, just as my dear love had been.

“Well, I think I can also explain that,” she said. “My father, in order that nothing compromising might be found if the police ever searched our apartments abroad, kept all his private papers in an old bureau at Studland. For several days I have been going through them, and they throw light upon many things which have hitherto been to me mysteries. The reason of his rapid journeys hither and thither, the motives of his friendships and the causes of his hatreds are explained.

“Last winter, while we were in Rome, Lieutenant Shacklock, as he called himself, lived in style at the Grand, while Himes had a room at the Quirinale. To every one they appeared as strangers to each other, and only met at our house. They both had committed a number of clever robberies of jewels and money, when Shacklock managed to ingratiate himself with a wealthy American widow, a Mrs Clay Hamilton, and after giving several little dinner-parties and escorting her here and there he succeeded, by a clever piece of trickery, in passing over her jewel-case full of valuable gems to Himes. The theft was quickly discovered, but no suspicion ever rested upon him. Indeed he actually went himself to the Questura with Mrs Clay Hamilton and reported the theft to the police! The jewel-case was, however, already at our house when, on the following night, the two men met.

“I was out at the theatre with Dr Gavazzi and Alice, but I can only suppose there must have been a violent quarrel over the distribution of the booty. At any rate, Himes declared that he would have nothing further to do with either my father or Shacklock, and next day left Rome for Paris. My father and Shacklock suspected that, out of spite, he meant to expose them to Nardini or to the Rome police, therefore, knowing with what object he had gone to Paris, Shacklock followed him and gave certain secret information at the Prefecture. The result of this was that Himes was arrested red-handed while committing an audacious robbery at Asnières, and sent to prison. He, of course, suspected that the friends with whom he had quarrelled had given information, yet he could not absolutely prove it. His first impulse was to retaliate by revealing all he knew regarding his late associates, but this was not enough for a man of his criminal instincts.

“In his heart there rankled through those long months of his confinement a murderous revenge. He swore that he would kill the men who betrayed him – and he has kept his vow!”

“Yes,” I said. “And he evidently believed that, being on such intimate terms with your father and yourself, I, too, was the latest recruit.”

“Ah! Your escape, dear, was a most fortunate one!” declared Ella, gazing up into my eyes with that love-look that told me volumes.

“I wonder where Himes is now?” queried Sammy. “He certainly seems absolutely fearless in his revenge.”

“What matters?” I said. “Let us remain silent. If he is captured, well and good. If not, we at least know the truth.”

“He killed my father – recollect,” Lucie remarked, in a hard voice.

“And was it not through your father – whose memory we should bury from to-day – that my poor friend and your lover, Manuel Carrera, died?” asked Sammy gravely.

Then a silence fell between all four of us. I was looking into the clear blue eyes of my well-beloved. All of us were preoccupied by our own thoughts. From out the dark tragedy had at last shone the light of truth.

After those years of grief and bitterness, of loneliness and yearning, Ella, my dear one, had been given back to me once more. She no longer wore the iron mask that she had borne so staunchly.

Our lips met again. She gazed into my eyes, and then she burst into tears – tears of joy. The fetters that bound her to the man she hated had been broken, and she stood there, sweet, pure, innocent and free – free to be mine – mine for ever.

“My love,” I said, heedless that we were not alone, “this affection of ours is greater than death, great as eternity itself; a love that shall leave earth with us when our souls leave our bodies and reach its uttermost perfection in other lives, in other worlds; a love that time cannot chill, nor any woe appal, nor any man unsever. God Himself has united us, and none can now place us asunder.”

Chapter Forty

Conclusion

To-day I am seated in the long old library at Wichenford where, at the big writing-table set in the deep window, I have spent so many hours putting down in black and white this curious chronicle of the evil that men do. The last blank folios lie before me.

What more need I tell you?

To describe the perfect happiness that now is mine would require still another volume. Ella – my own sweet Ella who was so nearly lost to me – became my wife a little over a year ago. She is seated in a long wicker chair at my side, while the summer sunset falling through the high old diamond-panes shines upon her fresh open countenance and tints her beautiful hair with gold.

It is the evening of a calm day, and a similar tranquillity seems to have fallen upon our lives, for a great peace has come to us in this stately old place that everywhere speaks mutely of the dignity of the Murrays.

Delightful indeed it is to be back again in England and no longer a wanderer, for Mr Murray has given over Wichenford to us for our home, and he in his turn is travelling in the Far East.

Of Dr Gavazzi we heard news not long ago. He is in Vienna, living, we suppose, upon his share of that money taken from his master’s secret hiding-place, while Himes, having returned to America, was, we saw in the papers, two months ago sentenced in New York to three years with hard labour for stealing a dressing-bag from a lady while travelling on the “Chicago Limited.”

A week after the death of Gordon-Wright and that eventful meeting at Granville Gardens when the enigma was solved, Lucie discovered in an old kit-bag of her father’s, at Studland, the packets of bank-notes obtained from the Villa Verde, and, suspecting them to be the proceeds of some robbery, she brought them to me. I suggested that as the money was not hers she should devote the whole of it to charity in Italy. Although fearing to put her foot on Italian soil again owing to the false and infamous charge against her, she at once adopted my suggestion, with the result that an orphan home at Poggio Imperiale, outside Florence, which she founded and endowed, now bears her name.

And the end? Well, I think you will agree that it is as it should be.

About three months after our return from our honeymoon in Norway Sammy came to me and made an announcement which caused me to clap him heartily on the back and grip his hand. He had discovered that he had misjudged poor Lucie, that he loved her, and they were now already engaged.

To-day as I pen this final page they have been man and wife already three whole months. Not long, it is true, but sufficient to show us how happy they are in each other’s love. They have taken “The Cedars,” a charming old ivy-covered house a mile from Melton Mowbray, for both are passionately fond of hunting, and both are looking forward to good runs this next season.

The summer sun is sinking lower. Over everywhere is a faint ethereal golden mist that rises from the water and the woods; the colour deepens; the scent of the blossoms grows stronger. The charm of perfect freedom and perfect faith are ours. This modern world sneers at the isolation and absorption of passion as an egotism, but surely it is its highest sublimity. Love that remembers aught save the one beloved may be affection, but it certainly is not love.

And while Ella and I are leading a life of peace undisturbed and of love infinite – a God-given love that surpasses any that man has known within his heart – Italian police agents in various parts of the world are still in active search of Giovanni Nardini, and Scotland Yard is still sorely puzzled over the antecedents and tragic end of the Mysterious Mr Miller.

The End