As We Forgive Them

“Some of it, not all,” was my rejoinder. “You saw that monk whom I met?”

“Yes. Since you have been in the convent I have made some inquiries, and find that the most popular Capuchin in the whole of Lucca is Fra Antonio, and that his charitableness is well known. It is he who begs from door to door through the city for contesimi and lire in order that the poor shall have their daily soup and bread. Report accredits him with great wealth, which on entering the Order of the Capuchins he made over as a gift to the fraternity. He is also known to have a friend to whom he is very much attached – an Englishman who has one eye so badly injured that he is known by the townspeople as the Ceco.”

“The Ceco!” I cried. “What have you discovered regarding him?”

“The keeper of a little cheese-shop close to the gate by which we left the city proved very communicative. Like all her class, she seemed to greatly admire our friend the Cappuccino. She told me of the frequent visits of this one-eyed Englishman who had lived so long in Italy that he was almost an Italian. The Ceco was in the habit, it seemed, of staying at the old albergo, the Croce di Malto, sometimes accompanied by a young and very pretty lady, his daughter.”

“Where do they come from?”

“Oh! I’ve not yet been able to discover that,” was Babbo’s reply. “It seems, however, that the constant visits of the Ceco to the monastery have aroused the public interest. The people say that Fra Antonio nowadays is not so active in his searches after money for the poor now he is too much occupied with his English friend.”

“And the girl?”

“It is evident that her beauty is remarkable, even in Lucca, this city of pretty girls,” answered the old man with a grin. “She speaks Tuscan perfectly, and could, they say, easily pass for an Italian. Her back is not straight like those Inglese one sees in the Via Tornabuoni – if the signore will pardon the criticism,” the old fellow added apologetically.

This proof that Dick Dawson, against whom the monk had warned Burton Blair, was actually the friend of the Capuchin brother rendered the situation more puzzling and more complicated. I recognised in these frequent consultations a secret plot against my friend, a conspiracy which had apparently been carried to a successful issue.

The girl Dolly, whoever she was, had of course never been to the monastery, but she had evidently been in Lucca as a participator in the plot to obtain Burton Blair’s valuable secret, the secret that was now mine by law.

We there and then resolved to make inquiries at the Croce di Malto, that antique old hostelry in a narrow side street peculiarly Italian, and which still prefers to be designated as an albergo, in preference to the modern name of hotel.

Dick Dawson, known as the Ceco, was undoubtedly in London, but with the connivance and aid of that crafty and ingenious man of secrets, who had so cleverly endeavoured to establish with me a false friendship.

Was it actually this man who hid his evil deeds beneath his shabby religious habit who was responsible for the death of poor Blair and the mysterious disappearance of that strange little object which was his most treasured possession. I somehow felt convinced that such was the actual truth.

Chapter Eleven

Which Explains the Peril of Mabel Blair

From inquiries made by old Babbo next morning at the Cross of Malta, it appeared quite plain that Mr Richard Dawson, whoever he was, constantly visited Lucca, and always with the object of consulting the popular Capuchin brother.

Sometimes the one-eyed Englishman who spoke Italian so well would journey up to the monastery and remain there several hours, and at others Fra Antonio would come to the inn and there remain closeted in closest secrecy with the visitor.

The Ceco, so called because of his defective vision, was apparently a man of means, for his tips to the waiters and maids were always generous, and when a guest, he and his daughter always ordered the best that could be procured. They came from Florence, the padrone thought, but of that he was not quite certain. The letters and telegrams he received securing rooms were dispatched from various towns in both France and Italy, which seemed to show that they were constantly travelling.

That was all the information we could gather. The identity of the mysterious Paolo Melandrini was, as yet, unproven. My primary object in travelling to Italy was not accomplished, but I nevertheless felt satisfied that I had at last discovered two of poor Blair’s most intimate and yet secret friends.

But why the secrecy? When I recollected how close had been our friendship, I felt surprised, and even a trifle annoyed that he had concealed the existence of these men from me. Much as I regretted to think ill of a friend who was dead, I could not suppress a suspicion that his acquaintance with those men was part of his secret, and that the latter was some dishonourable one.

Soon after midday, I crammed my things into my valise, and, impelled by a strong desire to return to safeguard, the interests of Mabel Blair, left Lucca for London. Babbo travelled with me as far as Pisa, where we changed, he journeying back to Florence and I picking up the sleeping-car express on its way through from Rome to Calais.

While standing on the platform at Pisa, however, the shabby old man, who had grown, thoughtful during the past half-hour or so, suddenly said —

“A strange idea has occurred to me, ignore. You will recollect that I learned in the Via Cristofano that the Signor Melandrini wore gold-rimmed glasses. Is it possible that he does so in Florence in order to conceal his defective sight?”

“Why – I believe so!” I cried. “I believe you’ve guessed the truth! But on the other hand, neither his servant nor the neighbours suspected him of being a foreigner.”

“He speaks Italian very well,” agreed the old man, “but they said he had a slight accent.”

“Well,” I said, excited at this latest theory. “Return at once to the Via San Cristofano and make further inquiries regarding the mysterious individual’s eyesight and his glasses. The old woman who keeps his rooms has no doubt seen him without his glasses, and can tell you the truth.”

“Signore,” was the old fellow’s answer. And I then wrote down for him my address in London to which he was to dispatch a telegram if his suspicions were confirmed.

Ten minutes later, the roaring Calais-Rome express, the limited train of three wagon-lits, dining-car and baggage-car, ran into the great vaulted station, and, wishing the queer old Babbo farewell, I climbed in and was allotted my berth for Calais.

To describe the long, wearying journey back from the Mediterranean to the Channel, with those wheels grinding for ever beneath, and the monotony only broken by the announcement that a meal was ready, is useless. You, who read this curious story of a man’s secret, who have travelled backwards and forwards over that steel road to Rome, know well how wearisome it becomes, if you have been a constant traveller between England and Italy.

Suffice it to say that thirty-six hours after entering the express at Pisa, I crossed the platform at Charing Cross, jumped into a hansom and drove to Great Russell Street. Reggie was not yet back from his warehouse, but on my table among a quantity of letters I found a telegram in Italian from Babbo. It ran: —

“Melandrini has left eye injured. Undoubtedly same man. – Carlini.”

The individual who was destined to be Mabel Blair’s secretary and adviser was her dead father’s bitterest enemy – the Englishman, Dick Dawson.

I stood staring at the telegram, utterly stupefied.

The strange couplet which the dead man had written in his will, and urged upon me to recollect, kept running in my head —

“King Henry the Eighth was a knave to his queens. He’d one short of seven – and nine or ten scenes!”

What hidden meaning could it convey? The historic facts of King Henry’s marriages and divorces were known to me just as they were known to every fourth-standard English child throughout the country. Yet there was certainly some motive why Blair should have placed the rhyme there – perhaps as a key to something, but to what?

After a hurried wash and brush up, for I was very dirty and fatigued after my long journey, I took a cab to Grosvenor Square, where I found Mabel dressed in her neat black, sitting alone reading in her own warm, cosy room, an apartment which her father had, two years ago, fitted tastefully and luxuriously as her boudoir.

She sprang to her feet quickly and greeted me in eagerness when the man announced me.

“Then you are back again, Mr Greenwood,” she cried. “Oh, I’m so very glad. I’ve been wondering and wondering that I had heard no news of you. Where have you been?”

“In Italy,” I answered, throwing off my overcoat at her suggestion, and taking a low chair near her. “I have been making inquiries.”

“And what have you discovered?”

“Several facts which tend rather to increase the mystery surrounding your poor father than to elucidate it.”

I saw that her face was paler than it had been when I left London, and that she seemed unnerved and strangely anxious. I asked her why she had not gone to Brighton or to some other place on the south coast as I had suggested, but she replied that she preferred to remain at home, and that in truth she had been anxiously awaiting my return.

I explained to her in brief what I had discovered in Italy: of my meeting with the Capuchin brother and of our curious conversation.

“I never heard my father speak of him,” she said. “What kind of man is he?”

I described him as best I could, and told her how I had met him at dinner there, in their house, during her absence with Mrs Percival in Scotland.

“I thought that a monk, having once entered an Order, could not re-assume the ordinary garments of secular life,” she remarked.

“Neither can he,” I said. “That very fact increases the suspicion against him, combined with the words I overheard later outside the Empire Theatre.” And then I went on to relate the incident, just as I have written it down in a foregoing chapter.

She was silent for some time, her delicate pointed chin resting upon her palm, as she gazed thoughtfully into the fire. Then at last she asked —

“And what have you found out regarding this mysterious Italian in whose hands my father has left me? Have you seen him?”

“No, I have not seen him, Mabel,” was my response. “But I have discovered that he is a middle-aged Englishman, and not an Italian at all. I shall not, I think, be jealous of his attentions to you, for he has a defect – he has only one eye.”

“Only one eye!” she gasped, her face blanching in an instant as she sprang to her feet. “A man with one eye – and an Englishman! Why,” she cried, “you surely don’t say that the man in question is named Dawson – Dick Dawson?”

“Paolo Melandrini and Dick Dawson are one and the same,” I said plainly, utterly amazed at the terrifying effect my words had had upon her.

“But surely my father has not left me in the hands of that fiend – the man whose very name is synonymous of all that is cunning, evil and brutal? It can’t be true – there must be some mistake, Mr Greenwood – there must be! Ah! you do not know the reputation of that one-eyed Englishman as I do, or you would wish me dead rather than see me in association with him. You must save me!” she cried in terror, bursting into a torrent of tears. “You promised to be my friend. You must save me, save me from that man – the man whose very touch deals death!” And next instant she reeled, stretched forth her thin white hands wildly, and would have fallen senseless to the floor had I not sprang forward and caught her in my arms.

Whom, I wondered, was this man Dick Dawson that she held in such terror and loathing – this one-eyed man who was evidently a link with her father’s mysterious past?

Chapter Twelve

Mr Richard Dawson

I confess that I was longing for the appearance of this one-eyed Englishman of whom Mabel Blair was evidently so terrified, in order to judge him for myself.

What I had gathered concerning him was, up to the present, by no means satisfactory. That, in common with the monk, he held the secret of the dead man’s past seemed practically certain, and perhaps Mabel feared some unwelcome revelation concerning her father’s actions and the source of his wealth. This was the thought which occurred to me when, having raised the alarm which brought the faithful companion, Mrs Percival, I was assisting to apply restoratives to the insensible girl.

As she lay, her head pillowed upon a cushion of daffodil silk, Mrs Percival knelt beside her, and, being in ignorance, held me, I think, in considerable suspicion. She inquired rather sharply the reason of Mabel’s unconsciousness, but I merely replied that she had been seized with a sudden faintness, and attributed it to the overheating of the room.

Presently, when she came to, she asked Mrs Percival and her maid Bowers to leave us alone, and after the door had shut she inquired, pale-faced and anxious —

“When is this man Dawson to come here?”

“When Mr Leighton gives him notice of the clause in your father’s will.”

“He can come here,” she said determinedly, “but before he crosses this threshold, I shall leave the house. He may act just as he thinks proper, but I will not reside under the same roof with him, nor will I have any communication with him whatsoever.”

“I quite understand your feelings, Mabel,” I said. “But is such a course a judicious one? Will it not be best to wait and watch the fellow’s movements?”

“Ah! but you don’t know him!” she cried. “You don’t suspect what I know to be the truth!”

“What’s that?”

“No,” she said in a low hoarse voice, “I may not tell you. You will discover all ere long, and then you will not be surprised that I abhor the very name of the man.”

“But why on earth did your father insert such a clause in his will?”

“Because he was compelled,” she answered hoarsely. “He could not help himself.”

“And if he had refused – refused to place you in the power of such a person – what then?”

“It would have meant his ruin,” she answered. “I suspected it all the instant I heard that a mysterious man was to be my secretary and to have control of my affairs. Your discovery in Italy has only confirmed my suspicions.”

“But you will take my advice, Mabel, and bear with him at first,” I urged, wondering within my heart whether her hatred of the man was because she knew that he was her father’s assassin. She entertained some violent dislike of him, but for what reason I entirely failed to discover.

She shook her head at my argument, saying – “I regret that I am not sufficiently diplomatic to be able to conceal my antipathy in that manner. We women are clever in many ways, but we must always exhibit our dislikes,” she added.

“Well,” I remarked, “it will be a very great pity to treat him with open hostility, for it may upset all our future chances of success in discovering the truth regarding your poor father’s death, and the theft of his secret. My strong advice is to remain quite silent, apathetic even, and yet with a keen, watchful eye. Sooner or later this man, if he really is your enemy, must betray himself. Then will be time enough for us to act firmly, and, in the end, you will triumph. For my own part I consider that the sooner Leighton gives the fellow notice of his appointment the better.”

“But is there no way by which this can be avoided?” she cried, dismayed. “Surely my poor father’s death is sufficiently painful without this second misfortune!”

She spoke to me as frankly as she would have done to a brother, and I recognised by her intense manner how, now that her suspicions were confirmed, she had become absolutely desperate. Amid all the luxury and splendour of that splendid place she was a wan and lonely figure, her young heart torn by grief at her father’s death and by a terror which she dare not divulge.

There is an old and oft-repeated saying that wealth does not bring happiness, and surely there is often a greater peace of mind and pure enjoyment of life in the cottage than in the mansion. The poor are apt to regard the rich with envy, yet it should be remembered that many a man and many a woman lolling in a luxurious carriage and served by liveried servants looks forth upon those toilers in the streets, well knowing that the hurrying millions of what they term “the masses” are really far happier than they. Many a disappointed, world-weary woman of title, often young and beautiful, would to-day gladly exchange places with the daughter of the people, whose life, if hard, is nevertheless full of harmless pleasures and as much happiness as can to obtained in this our workaday world. This allegation may sound strange, but I nevertheless declare it to be true. The possession of money may bring luxury and renown; it may enable men and women to outshine their fellows; it may bring honour, esteem and even popularity. But what are they all? Ask the great landowner; ask the wealthy peer; ask the millionaire. If they speak the truth they will tell you in confidence that they are not in their hearts half so happy, nor do they enjoy life so much, as the small man of independent means, the man who is subject to an abatement upon his income-tax.

As I sat there with the dead man’s daughter, endeavouring to induce her to receive the mysterious individual without open hostility, I could not help noticing the vivid contrast between the luxury of her surroundings and the heavy burden of her heart.

She suggested that the house should be sold and that she should retire to Mayvill and there live quietly in the country with Mrs Percival, but I urged her to wait, at least for the present. It seemed a pity that Burton Blair’s splendid collection of old masters, and the fine tapestries that he had bought in Spain only a few years ago, and the unique collection of early Majolica, should go to the hammer. Among the many treasures in the dining-room was Andrea del Sarto’s “Holy Family,” for which Blair had given sixteen thousand five hundred pounds at Christie’s, and which was considered one of the finest examples of that great master. Again, the Italian Renaissance furniture, the old Montelupo and Savona ware and the magnificent old English plate were each worth a fortune in themselves, and should, I contended, remain Mabel’s property, as they had been all bequeathed to her.

“Yes, I know,” she responded to my argument. “Everything is mine except that little bag containing the sachet, which is yours, and which is so unfortunately missing.”

“You must help me to recover it,” I urged. “It will be to our mutual interests to do so.”

“Of course I will assist you in every way possible, Mr Greenwood,” was her answer. “Since you’ve been away in Italy I have had the house searched from top to bottom, and have myself examined all my father’s dispatch-boxes, his two other safes, and certain places where he sometimes secreted his private papers, in order to discover whether, fearing that an attempt might be made to steal the little bag, he left it at home. But all in vain. It certainly is not in this house.”

I thanked her for her efforts, knowing well that she had acted vigorously on my behalf, but feeling that any search within that house was futile, and that if the secret were ever recovered it would be found in the hands of one or other of Blair’s enemies.

Together we sat for a long time discussing the situation. The reason of her hatred of the man Dawson she would not divulge, but this did not cause me any real surprise, for I saw in her attitude a desire to conceal some secret of her father’s past. Nevertheless, after much persuasion, I induced her to consent to allow the man to be informed of his office, and to receive him without betraying the slightest sign of annoyance or disfavour.

This I considered a triumph of my own diplomacy. Up to a certain point I, as her best friend in those hard, dark days bygone, possessed a complete influence over her. But beyond that, when it became a question involving her father’s honour, I was entirely powerless. She was a girl of strong individuality, and like all such, was quick of penetration, and peculiarly subject to prejudice on account of her high sense of honour.

She flattered me by declaring that she wished that I had been appointed her secretary, whereupon I thanked her for the compliment, but asserted —

“Such a thing could never have been.”

“Why?”

“Because you have told me that this fellow Dawson is coming here as a matter of right. Your father wrote that unfortunate clause in his will under compulsion – which means, because he stood in fear of him.”

“Yes,” she sighed in a low voice. “You are right, Mr Greenwood. Quite right. He held my father’s life in his hands.”

This latter remark struck me as very strange. Could Burton Blair have been guilty of some nameless crime that he should fear this mysterious one-eyed Englishman? Perhaps so. Perhaps the man Dick Dawson, who had for years been passing as an Italian in rural Italy, was the only living witness of an incident which Blair, in his prosperous days, would have gladly given a million to efface. Such, indeed, was one of the many theories which arose within me. Yet when I recollected the bluff, good-natured honesty of Burton Blair, his sterling sincerity, his high-mindedness, and his anonymous charitable works for charity’s sake, I crushed down all such suspicions, and determined only to respect the dead man’s memory.

The next night, just before nine o’clock, as Reggie and I were chatting over our coffee in our cosy little dining-room in Great Russell Street, Glave, our man, tapped, entered, and handed me a card.

I sprang from my chair, as though I had received an electric shock.

“Well! This is funny, old chap,” I cried turning to my friend. “Here’s actually the man Dawson himself.”

“Dawson!” gasped the man against whom the monk had warned me. “Let’s have him in. But, by Gad! we must be careful of what we say, for, if all is true of him, he has the cuteness of Old Nick himself.”

“Leave him to me,” I said. Then turning to Glave, said, “Show the gentleman in.”

And we both waited in breathless expectancy for the appearance of the man who knew the truth concerning the carefully-guarded past of Burton Blair, and who, for some mysterious reason, had concealed himself so long in the guise of an Italian.

A moment later he was ushered in, and bowing to us exclaimed with a smile —

“I suppose, gentlemen, I have to introduce myself. My name is Dawson – Richard Dawson.”

“And mine is Gilbert Greenwood,” I said rather distantly. “While my friend here is Reginald Seton.”

“I have heard of you both from our mutual friend, now unfortunately deceased, Burton Blair,” he exclaimed; and sank slowly into the grandfather armchair which I indicated, while I myself stood upon the hearthrug with my back to the fire in order to take a good look at him.

He was in well-made evening clothes, over which he wore a black overcoat, yet there was nothing about him suggestive of the man of strong character. He was of middle height, and his age I judged to be nearly fifty. He wore gold-framed round eye-glasses with thick pebbles, through which he seemed to blink at us like a German professor, and his general aspect was that of a sedate and studious man.

Beneath a patchy mass of grey-brown hair his forehead fell in wrinkled notches over a pair of sunken blue eyes, one of which looked upon the world in speculative wonder, while the other was grey, cloudy, and sightless. Straggling eyebrows wandered in a curiously uncertain manner to their meeting-place above a somewhat fleshy nose. Below the cheeks and beard and moustache blended in a colour-scheme of grey. From the sleeves of his overcoat, as he sat there before us, his lithe, brown fingers shot in and out, twisting and tapping the padded arms of the chair with nervous persistence, and in a manner which indicated the high tension of the man.

“My reason for intruding upon you at this hour,” he said half apologetically, yet with a mysterious smile upon his thick lips, “is because I only arrived back in London this evening and discovered that my friend Blair has, by his will, left in my hands the control of his daughter’s affairs.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed in pretended surprise as though it were news to me. “And who has said this?”