As We Forgive Them

“Well, in that case, I think that, before he is informed of poor Blair’s death and the good fortune in store for him, we ought at least to find out who and what he is. We can in any case, keep a watchful eye on him, and see that he doesn’t trick Mabel out of her money.”

The lawyer sighed, wiped his glasses slowly, and said —

“He will have the entire management of everything, therefore it will be difficult to know what goes on, or how much he puts into his own pocket.”

“But whatever could possess Blair to insert such a mad clause as that? Didn’t you point out the folly of it?”

“I did.”

“And what did he say?”

“He reflected a few moments over my words, sighed, and then answered, ‘It is imperative, Leighton. I have no other alternative.’ Therefore from that I took it that he was acting under compulsion.”

“You believe that this foreigner was in a position to demand it – eh?”

The solicitor nodded. He evidently was of opinion that the reason of the introduction of this unknown person into Mabel’s household was a secret one, known only to Burton Blair and to the individual himself. It was curious, I reflected, that Mabel herself had not mentioned it to me. Yet perhaps she had hesitated, because I had told her of my promise to her father, and she did not wish to hurt my feelings. The whole situation became hourly more complicated and more mysterious.

I was, however, bent upon accomplishing two things; first, to recover the millionaire’s most precious possession which he had bequeathed to me, together with such an extraordinary injunction to recollect that doggerel couplet which still ran in my head; and secondly, to make private inquiries regarding this unknown foreigner who had so suddenly become introduced into the affair.

That same evening at six o’clock, having met Reggie by appointment at Mr Leighton’s office, we all three drove to Scotland Yard, where we had a long consultation with one of the head officials, to whom we explained the circumstances and our suspicions of foul play.

“Well,” he replied at length, “of course I will institute inquiries in Manchester and elsewhere, but as the medical evidence has proved so conclusively that the gentleman in question died from natural causes, I cannot hold out very much hope that out Department or the Manchester Detective Department can assist you. The grounds you have for supposing that he met with foul play are very vague, you must admit, and as far as I can see, the only motive at all was the theft of this paper, or whatever it was, which he carried upon him. Yet men are not usually killed in broad daylight in order to commit a theft which any expert pickpocket might effect. Besides, if his enemies or rivals knew what it was and how he was in the habit of carrying it, they could easily have secured it without assassination.”

“But he was in possession of some secret,” remarked the solicitor.

“Of what character?”

“I have unfortunately no idea. Nobody knows. All that we are aware is that its possession raised him from poverty to affluence, and that one person, if not more, was eager to obtain possession of it.”

“Naturally,” remarked the grey-haired Assistant-Director of Criminal Investigations. “But who was this person?”

“Unfortunately I do not know. My client told me this a year ago, but mentioned no name.”

“Then you have no suspicion whatever of any one?”

“None. The little bag of wash-leather, inside which the document was sewn, has been stolen, and this fact arouses our suspicion of foul play.” The hide-bound official shook his head very dubiously.

“That is not enough upon which to base a suspicion of murder, especially as we have had all the evidence at the inquest, a post-mortem and a unanimous verdict of the coroner’s jury. No, gentlemen,” he added, “I don’t see any ground for really grave suspicion. The document may not have been stolen after all. Mr Blair seems to have been of a somewhat eccentric disposition, like many men who suddenly rise in the world, and he may have hidden it away for safe-keeping somewhere. To me, this seems by far the most likely theory, especially as he had expressed a fear that his enemies sought to gain possession of it.”

“But surely, if there is suspicion of murder, it is the duty of the police to investigate it!” I exclaimed resentfully.

“Granted. But where is the suspicion? Neither doctors, coroner, local police nor jury entertain the slightest doubt that he died from natural causes,” he argued. “In that case the Manchester police have neither right nor necessity to interfere.”

“But there has been a theft.”

“What proof have you of it?” he asked, raising his grey eyebrows and tapping the table with his pen. “If you can show me that a theft has been committed, then I will put in motion the various influences at my command. On the contrary, you merely suspect that this something sewn in a bag has been stolen. Yet it may be hidden in some place difficult to find, but nevertheless in safety. As, however, you all three allege that the unfortunate gentleman was assassinated in order to gain possession of this mysterious little packet of which he was so careful, I will communicate with the Manchester City police and ask them to make what inquiries they can. Further than that, gentlemen,” he added suavely, “I fear that my Department cannot assist you.”

“Then all I have to reply,” remarked Mr Leighton, bluntly, “is that the public opinion of the futility of this branch of the police in the detection of crime is fully justified, and I shall not fail to see that public attention is called to the matter through the Press. It’s simply a disgrace.”

“I’m only acting, sir, upon my instructions, conjointly with what you have yourself told me,” was his answer. “I assure you that if I ordered inquiries to be made in every case in which persons are alleged to have been murdered, I should require a detective force as large as the British Army. Why, not a day passes without I receive dozens of secret callers and anonymous letters all alleging assassination – generally against some person towards whom they entertain a dislike. Eighteen years as head of this Department, however, has, I think, taught me how to distinguish a case for inquiry – which yours is not.”

Argument proved futile. The official mind was made up that Burton Blair had not fallen a victim to foul play, therefore we could hope for no assistance. So with our dissatisfaction rather plainly marked, we rose and went out again into Whitehall.

“It’s a scandal!” Reggie declared angrily. “Poor Blair has been murdered – everything points to it – and yet the police won’t lift a finger to assist us to reveal the truth, just because a doctor discovered that he had a weak heart. It’s placing a premium on crime,” he added, his fist clenched savagely. “I’ll relate the whole thing to my friend Mills, the Member for West Derbyshire, and get him to ask a question in the House. We’ll see what this new Home Secretary says to it! It’ll be a nasty pill for him, I’ll wager.”

“Oh, he’ll have some typewritten official excuse ready, never fear,” laughed Leighton. “If they won’t help us, we must make inquiries for ourselves.”

The solicitor parted from us in Trafalgar Square, arranging to meet us at Grosvenor Square after the funeral, when the will would be formally read before the dead man’s daughter and her companion, Mrs Percival.

“And then,” he added, “we shall have to take some active steps to discover this mysterious person who is in future to control her fortune.”

“I’ll undertake the inquiries,” I said. “Fortunately I speak Italian, therefore, before we give him notice of Blair’s death. I’ll go out to Florence and ascertain who and what he is.” Truth to tell, I had a suspicion that the letter which I had secured from the dead man’s blotting book, and which I had kept secretly to myself, had been written by this unknown individual – Paolo Melandrini. Although it bore neither address nor signature, and was in a heavy and rather uneducated hand, it was evidently the letter of a Tuscan, for I detected in it certain phonetic spelling which was purely Florentine. Translated, the strange communication read as follows: —

“Your letter reached me only this morning. The Ceco (blind man) is in Paris, on his way to London. The girl is with him, and they evidently know something. So be very careful. He and his ingenious friends will probably try and trick you.

“I am still at my post, but the water has risen three metres on account of the heavy rains. Nevertheless, farming has been good, so I shall expect to meet you at vespers in San Frediano on the evening of the 6th of next month. I have something most important to tell you. Recollect that the Ceco means mischief, and act accordingly. Addio.”

Times without number I carefully translated the curious missive word for word. It seemed full of hidden meaning.

What seemed most probable was that the person known as the “blind man,” who was Blair’s enemy, had actually been successful in gaining possession of that precious little sachet of chamois leather that was now mine by right, together with the mysterious secret it contained.

Chapter Six

Concerns Three Capital A’s

The function in the library at Grosvenor Square on the following afternoon was, as may be supposed, a very sad and painful one.

Mabel Blair, dressed in deep mourning, her eyes betraying traces of tears, sat still and silent while the solicitor drily read over the will, clause by clause.

She made no comment, even when he repeated the dead man’s appointment of the unknown Italian to be manager of his daughter’s fortune.

“But who is he, pray?” demanded Mrs Percival, in her quiet, refined voice. “I have never heard Mr Blair speak of any such person.”

“Nor have I,” admitted Leighton, pausing a moment to readjust his glasses, and then continuing to read the document through to the end.

We were all thoroughly glad when the formality was over. Afterwards, Mabel whispered to me that she wished to see me alone in the morning-room, and when we had entered together and I had closed the door, she said —

“Last night I searched the small safe in my father’s bedroom where he sometimes kept his private papers and things. There were a quantity of my poor mother’s letters, written to him years ago when he was at sea, but nothing else, only this.” And she drew from her pocket a small, soiled and frayed playing-card, an ace of hearts, upon which certain cabalistic capitals had been written in three columns. In order that you shall properly understand the arrangement and position of the letters, it will perhaps be as well if I here reproduce it: —

“That’s curious!” I remarked, turning it over anxiously in my hand. “Have you tried to discover what meaning the words convey?”

“Yes; but it’s some cipher or other, I think. You will notice that the two upper columns commence with ‘A,’ and the lower column ends with the same letter. The card is the ace of hearts, and in all those points I detect some hidden meaning.”

“No doubt,” I said. “But was there an appearance of it being carefully preserved?”

“Yes, it was sealed in a linen-lined envelope to itself, and marked in my father’s handwriting, ‘Burton Blair – private.’ I wonder what it means?”

“Ah! I wonder,” I exclaimed, pondering deeply, and still gazing upon the three columns of fourteen letters. I tried to decipher it by the usual known methods of the easy cipher, but could make nothing intelligible of it. There were some hidden words there, and being utterly unintelligible, they caused me considerable thought. Why Blair had preserved that card in such secrecy was, to say the least, a mystery. In it I suspected there was some hidden clue to his secret, but of its nature I could not even guess.

When we had discussed it for a long time, arriving at no satisfactory conclusion, I suggested that she should go abroad with Mrs Percival for a few weeks so as to change her surroundings and endeavour to forget her sudden bereavement, but she only shook her head, murmuring —

“No, I prefer to remain here. The loss of my poor father would be the same to me abroad as it is here.”

“But you must endeavour to forget,” I urged with deep sympathy. “We are doing our utmost to solve the mystery surrounding your father’s actions, and the means by which he came by his death. To-night, indeed, I am leaving for Italy in order to make secret inquiries regarding this person who is appointed your secretary.”

“Ah, yes,” she sighed. “I wonder who he is? I wonder what motive my father could possibly have in placing my affairs in the hands of a stranger?”

“He is probably an old friend of your father’s,” I suggested.

“No,” she responded, “I knew all his friends. He had only one secret from me – the secret of the source of his wealth. That he always refused point-blank to tell me.”

“I shall travel direct to Florence, and discover what I can before the lawyers give this mysterious person notice of your father’s death,” I said. “I may obtain some knowledge which will be of the greatest benefit to us hereafter.”

“Ah! it is really very good of you, Mr Greenwood,” she answered, lifting her beautiful eyes to mine with an expression of profound gratitude. “I must admit that the idea of being closely associated with a stranger, and that stranger a foreigner, causes me considerable apprehension.”

“But he may be young and good-looking, the veritable Paolo of romance – and you his Francesca,” I suggested, smiling.

Her sweet lips relaxed slightly, but she shook her head, sighing as she answered —

“Please don’t anticipate anything of the kind. I only hope he may be old and very ugly.”

“So that he will not arouse my jealousy – eh?” I laughed. “Really, Mabel, if our friendship were not upon such a well-defined basis, I should allow myself to act the part of lover. You know I – ”

“Now don’t be foolish,” she interrupted, raising her small finger in mock reproval. “Remember what you said yesterday.”

“I said what I meant.”

“And so did I. To tell you the truth, I like to think of you as my big brother,” she declared. “I suppose I shall never love,” she added, reflectively, gazing into the blazing fire.

“No, no; don’t say that, Mabel. You’ll one day meet some man in your own station, love him, marry and be happy,” I said, my hand upon her shoulder. “Recollect that with your wealth you can secure the pick of the matrimonial market.”

“Some impoverished young aristocrat, you mean? No, thanks. I’ve already met a good many, but their disguise of affection has always been much too thin. Most of them wanted my money to pay off mortgages on their estates. No, I’d much prefer a poor man – although I shall never marry – never.”

I was silent for a moment, then I remarked quite bluntly —

“I always thought you would marry young Lord Newborough. You both seemed very good friends.”

“So we were – until he proposed to me.”

And she looked me straight in the face with that clear gaze and those splendid eyes wide open in wonderment, almost like a child’s.

Her character was a strangely complex one. As a tall, willowy girl, in those early days of our acquaintance, I knew her to be high-minded and wilful, yet of that sweet affectionate disposition that endeared her to every one with whom she came into contact. Her nature was so calm and so sweet that in her love seemed an unconscious impulse. I had often thought she was surely too soft, too good, too fair to be cast among the briers of the world, and fall and bleed upon the thorns of life. The world is just as cold and pitiless and just as full of pitfalls for the young and unwary in Mayfair as in Mile End. Hence, to fulfil my promise to that man now silent in his grave, it was my duty to protect her from the thousand and one wiles of those who would endeavour to profit by sex and inexperience.

Her early privations, her hard life in youth while her father was absent at sea, and those weary months of tramping the turnpikes of England, all had had their effect upon her. With her, love seemed to be scarcely a passion or a sentiment, but a dreamy enchantment, a reverie which a fairy spell dissolved or riveted at pleasure. So exquisitely delicate was her character, just as was her countenance, that it seemed as if a touch would profane it. Like a strain of sad, sweet music which comes floating by on the wings of night and silence, and which we rather feel than hear, like the exhalation of the violet dying even upon the sense it charms, like the snow-flake dissolved in air before it has caught a stain of earth, like the light surf severed from the billow which a breath disperses – such was her nature, so full of that modesty, grace and tenderness without which a woman is no woman.

As she stood there before me, a frail, delicate figure in her plain black gown, and her hand in mine, thanking me for the investigation which I was undertaking in her behalf, and wishing me bon voyage, I shuddered to think of her thrown alone amid harsh and adverse destinies, and amid all the corruptions and sharks of society, perhaps without energy to resist, or will to act, or strength to endure. Alone in such a case, the end must inevitably be desolation.

I wished her farewell, turning from her with a feeling that, loving her as I admit I did, I was nevertheless unworthy of her. Yet surely I was playing a dangerous game!

I had entertained a strong and increasing affection for her ever since that winter’s night down at Helpstone. Still, now that she was possessor of vast wealth, I felt that the difference in our ages and the fact that I was a poor man were both barriers to our marriage. Indeed, she had never exerted any of the feminine wiles of flirtation towards me; she had never once allowed me to think that I had captivated her. She had spoken the truth. She regarded me as an elder brother – that was all.

That same night, as I paced the deck of the Channel steamer in the teeth of a wintry gale, watching the revolving light of Calais harbour growing more and more distinct, my thoughts were full of her. Love is the teacher, grief the tamer, and time the healer of the human heart. While the engines throbbed, the wind howled and the dark seas swirled past, I paced up and down puzzling over the playing-card in my pocket and reflecting upon all that had occurred. The rich fancies of unbowed youth, the visions of long-perished hopes, the shadows of unborn joys, the gay colourings of the dawn of existence – what ever my memory had treasured up, came before me in review, but lived no longer within my heart.

I recollected that truism of Rochefoucauld’s: “Il est difficile de definer l’amour: ce qu’on en peut dire est que, dans l’ame, c’est un passion de regner; dans les esprits, c’est une sympathie; et dans le corps, ce n’est qu’une envie cachée et delicate de posséder ce que l’on aime, après beaucoup de mystères.” Yes, I loved her with all my heart, with all my soul, but to me I recognised that it was not permitted. My duty, the duty I had promised to fulfil to that dying man whose life-story had been a secret romance, was to act as Mabel’s protector, and not to become her lover and thus profit by her wealth. Blair had left his secret to me, in order, no doubt, to place me beyond the necessity of fortune-hunting, and as it had been lost it was my duty to him and to myself to spare no effort to recover it.

With these sentiments firmly established within my heart I entered the wagon-lit at Calais, and started on the first stage of my journey across Europe from the Channel to the Mediterranean.

Three days later I was strolling up the Via Tornabuoni, in Florence, that thoroughfare of mediaeval palaces, banks, consulates and chemists’ shops that had been so familiar to me each winter, until I had taken to hunting in England in preference to the sunshine of the Lung’ Arno and the Cascine. Indeed, some of my early years had been spent in Italy, and I had grown to love it, as every Englishman does. In that bright February morning as I passed up the long, crooked street, filled by the nonchalant Florentines and the wealthy foreigners out for an airing, I passed many men and women of my acquaintance. Doney’s and Giacosa’s, the favourite lounges of the men, were agog with rich idlers sipping cocktails or that seductive petit verre known in the Via Tornabuoni as a piccolo, the baskets of the flower-sellers gave a welcome touch of colour to the grim grey of the colossal Palace of the Strozzi, while from the consulates the flags of various nations, most conspicuous of all being that of the ever-popular “Major,” reminded me that it was the festà of Santa Margherita.

In the old days, when I used to live en pension with a couple of Italian artillery officers and a Dutch art-student in the top floor of one of those great old palaces in the Via dei Banchi, the Via Tornabuoni used to be my morning walk, for there one meets everybody, the ladies shopping or going to the libraries, and the men gossiping on the kerb – a habit quickly acquired by every Englishman who takes up his abode in Italy.

It was astonishing, too, what a crowd of well-known faces I passed that morning – English peers and peeresses, Members of Parliament, financial magnates, City sharks, manufacturers, and tourists of every grade and of every nation.

His Highness the Count of Turin, returning from drill, rode by laughing with his aide-de-camp and saluting those he knew. The women mostly wore their smartest toilettes with fur, because a cold wind came up from the Arno, the scent of flowers was in the air, bright laughter and incessant chatter sounded everywhere, and the red-roofed old Lily City was alive with gaiety. Perhaps no city in all the world is so full of charm nor so full of contrasts as quaint old Florence, with her wonderful cathedral, her antique bridge with rows of jewellers’ shops upon it, her magnificent churches, her ponderous palaces, and her dark, silent, mediaeval streets, little changed, some of them, since the days when they were trodden by Giotto and by Dante. Time has laid his hand lightly indeed upon the City of Flowers, but whenever he has done so he has altered it out of all recognition, and the garish modernity of certain streets and piazzas surely grates to-day upon those who, like myself, knew the old city before the Piazza Vittorio – always the Piazza Vittorio, synonym of vandalism – had been constructed, and the old Ghetto, picturesque if unclean, was still in existence.

Two men, both of them Italian, stopped to salute me as I walked, and to wish me ben tornato. One was an advocate whose wife was accredited one of the prettiest women in that city where, strangely enough, the most striking type of beauty is fair-haired. The other was the Cavaliere Alinari, secretary to the British Consul-General, or the “Major,” as everybody speaks of him.

I had only arrived in Florence two hours before, and, after a wash at the Savoy, had gone forth with the object of cashing a cheque at French’s, prior to commencing my inquiries.

Meeting Alinari, however, caused me to halt for a moment, and after he had expressed pleasure at my return, I asked —

“Do you, by any chance, happen to know any one by the name of Melandrini – Paolo Melandrini? His address is given me as Via San Cristofano, number eight.”

He looked at me rather strangely with his sharp eyes, stroked his dark beard a moment, and replied in English, with a slight accent —

“The address does not sound very inviting, Mr Greenwood. I have not the pleasure of knowing the gentleman, but the Via San Cristofano is one of the poorest and worst streets in Florence, just behind Santa Croce from the Via Ghibellina. I should not advise you to enter that quarter at night. There are some very bad characters there.”

“Well,” I explained, “the fact is I have come down here expressly to ascertain some facts concerning this person.”

“Then don’t do it yourself,” was my friend’s strong advice. “Employ some one who is a Florentine. If it is a case of confidential inquiries, he will certainly be much more successful than you can ever be. The moment you set foot in that street it would be known in every tenement that an Inglese was asking questions. And,” he added with a meaning smile, “they resent questions being asked in the Via San Cristofano.”

Chapter Seven

The Mysterious Foreigner

I felt that his advice was good, and in further conversation over a piccolo at Giacosa’s he suggested that I should employ a very shrewd but ugly little old man named Carlini, who sometimes made confidential inquiries on behalf of the Consulate.