Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.The House of Silence.The effect of my words upon the burly Capuchin, whose form seemed almost gigantic on account of the thickness of his inartistic habit, was as curious as it was unexpected.My announcement of Blair’s death seemed to completely unnerve him. Apparently he had been waiting there, keeping the appointment, all unconscious of the untimely end of the man with whom he had been on terms of such secret and intimate friendship.“Tell me—tell me how it happened,” he gasped in Italian in a low, hushed voice, as though he feared that some eavesdropper might be lurking in those dark recesses.In a few brief words I explained the truth, to which he listened in silence. Then, when I had finished, he muttered something, crossed himself, and, as the approaching footsteps of the sacristan aroused us both, we walked forward and out into the dusk of the broad piazza.Old Carlini, was was lounging upon a bench smoking the end of a cigar, noticed us in an instant and I saw him open his eyes in wonderment, although further than that he betrayed no sign.“Poverino! Poverino!” repeated the monk as we strolled together slowly beside the old red walls of the once-proud city. “To think that our poor friend Burton died so suddenly—and without a word!”“Not exactly without a word,” I said. “He gave several directions, one of which was that he placed his daughter Mabel beneath my care.”“Ah, the little Mabel,” he sighed. “Surely it is ten years since I saw her in Manchester. She was then about eleven, a tall, dark-haired, rather pretty child, a striking likeness of her mother—poor woman.”“You knew her mother, then?” I asked in some surprise.He nodded in the affirmative, but gave no further information.Suddenly turning to me as we walked towards the city gate, the Ponto Santa Maria, where the uniformed officers of thedaziowere lounging ready to tax every pennyworth of food-stuff entering there, he demanded—“How did you know that I had an appointment with our friend to-night?”“By the letter which you wrote him, and which was found in his bag after his decease,” I responded frankly.He grunted with distinct satisfaction. It struck me indeed as though he were apprehensive that Burton had before his death told me some details regarding his life. I recollected that curious cipher upon the playing-card, although I made no reference to it.“Ah! I see!” he exclaimed presently. “But if that little wallet, or whatever it was, that he always wore either concealed within his clothes or suspended around his neck, is missing, does not it point to a tragedy—theft and murder?”“There are distinct suspicions,” was my reply. “Although, according to the doctors, he died from a purely natural cause.”“Ah! I don’t believe it!” cried the monk, fiercely clenching his fist. “One of them has succeeded at last in stealing that sachet of which he was always so very careful, and I’m positive that murder has been committed in order to conceal the theft.”“One of whom?” I inquired anxiously.“One of his enemies.”“But are you aware what that little bag contained?”“He never would tell me,” was the Capuchin’s reply, looking me straight in the face. “He only said that his secret was concealed within—and I have reason to believe that such was a fact.”“But you knew his secret?” I said, my eyes full upon him.I noted, by the change in his dark countenance, how my allegation caused him quick apprehension. He could not totally deny it, yet he was certainly seeking some means of misleading me.“I only know what he explained to me,” he responded. “And that was not much, for, as you are aware, he was a most reticent man. He has long ago related to me, however, the somewhat romantic circumstances in which you met, what a good friend you were to him before his stroke of fortune, and how you and your friend—I forget his name—put Mabel to school at Bournemouth, and thus rescued her from that weary tramp which Burton himself had undertaken.”“But why was he on tramp in that manner?” I asked. “To me it has always been an enigma.”“And also to me. He was, I believe, in search of the key to that secret which he carried with him—the secret which, you say, he has bequeathed to you.”“Did he reveal to you nothing more?” I inquired, recollecting that from this man’s remarks regarding Mabel’s youth, he and Blair must have been old friends.“Nothing. His secret remained his own, and he revealed it to nobody always fearing betrayal.”“But now that it is in other hands, what do you anticipate?” I inquired, still walking at his side, for we had passed out of the city and were out upon that wide, dirty road that led away to the Moriano Bridge and then fifteen miles up into the mountains to that leafy and rather gay summer resort well known to all Italians and some English, the Baths of Lucca.“Well,” responded my companion, very gravely, “from what I learned in London on the occasion we met, I anticipate that poor Blair’s secret has been most ingeniously stolen, and will be put to good account by the person into whose possession it has now passed.”“To the detriment of his daughter Mabel?”“Most certainly. She must be the principal sufferer,” he replied, with just a suspicion of a sigh.“Ah, if he had only confided his affairs in some one who, knowing the truth, might have combated this cunning conspiracy! But, as it is, we seem all utterly in the dark. Even his lawyers know nothing!”“And you, to whom the secret is left, have actually lost it!” he added. “Yes, signore, the situation is indeed a most critical one.”“In this affair, Signor Salvi,” I said, “being mutual friends of poor Blair, we must endeavour to do our best to discover and punish his enemies. Tell me, therefore, if you are aware of the source of our unfortunate friend’s vast wealth?”“I am not Signor Salvi here,” was the monk’s quiet reply. “I am known as Fra Antonio of Arezzo, or Fra Antonio for short. The name of Salvi was given to me by poor Blair himself, who did not wish to introduce a Capuchin among his worldly friends as such. As to the source of his wealth, I believe I am acquainted with the truth.”“Then tell me, tell me!” I cried anxiously.“For it may give us the clue to these persons who had so successfully conspired against him.” Again the monk turned his dark, penetrating eyes upon me, those eyes that in the gloom of San Frediano had seemed so full of fire and yet so full of mystery.“No,” he answered in a hard, decisive tone. “I am not permitted to tell anything. He is dead—let his memory rest.”“But why?” I demanded. “In these circumstances of grave suspicion, and of the theft of the secret which is my property by right, it is surely your duty to explain what you know, in order that we may gain a clue? Recollect, too, that the future of his daughter depends upon the truth being revealed.”“I can tell you nothing,” he repeated. “Much as I regret it, my lips are sealed.”“Why?”“By an oath taken years ago—before I entered the Order of the Capuchins,” he responded. Then after a pause, he added, with a sigh, “It is all strange—stranger perhaps than any man has dreamed—yet I can tell you nothing, Mr Greenwood, absolutely nothing.”I was silent. His words were highly tantalising, as well as disappointing. I had not yet made up my mind whether he was actually my enemy or my friend.At one moment he seemed simple, honest and straightforward as are all men of his religious order, yet at others there seemed within him that craft and cunning, that clever diplomacy and far-seeing acumen of the Jesuit, traits of a character warped into ingenuity and double-dealing.The very fact that Burton Blair had always hidden from me his friendship—if friendship it were—for this stalwart monk with the bronzed and furrowed face, caused me to entertain a kind of vague distrust in him. And yet, when I recollected the tone of the letter he had written to Blair, how could I doubt but their friendship, if secret, was a real and genuine one? Nevertheless, I recollected those words I had overheard on the pavement of Leicester Square, and they caused me to ponder and to doubt.I walked on beside this man, heedless of our destination. We were quite in the country now. The immobility of everything, the luminous brilliancy of the tints of that winter afterglow gave the grey, olive-clad Tuscan hills something of sadness. That great, calm silence over everything, that unchanging stillness in the air, those motionless lights and great shadows gave one the impression of a pause in the dizzy movement of centuries, of a reflectiveness, of an intense waiting, or rather a look of melancholy thrown back on a past anterior to suns and human beings, races and religions.Before us, as we rounded a bend in the road, I saw a huge, white old monastery standing high upon the hillside half hidden by the grey-green trees.It was the Convent of the Cappuccini, he told me—his home.I halted for a moment, gazing upon the white, almost windowless building, scorched by three hundred summers, standing like a stronghold, as once it was, against the background of the purple Apennines. I listened to the clanking of the old bell that sent out its summons with the same note of age, the same old voice as in centuries gone. It was then, in that moment, that the charm of old-world Lucca and her beautiful surroundings became impressed upon me. I felt, for the first time, stealing up from everywhere, an atmosphere of separateness, as it were, from the rest of the world, of mystery—a living essence of what the place is—destructible, alas! but still impregnating all things, exhaling from all things—surely the dying soul of once-brilliant Tuscany.And there beside me, overwhelming all my thoughts, as the shadow of the giant Sphinx falls lengthening upon the desert sands, stood that big, bronzed monk in the faded brown habit, his feet bare, his waist bound by a hempen cord, his countenance a mystery, yet within his heart the great secret which no power could induce him to divulge—the secret of wealth that had been bequeathed to me.“Poor Blair is dead!” he repeated again and again in fairly good English, as though almost unable as yet to realise that his friend was no more. Nevertheless, I was slow to become convinced that he spoke seriously. He might be misleading me, after all.At his invitation I accompanied him up the steep, winding road until we came to the ponderous gate of the monastery, at which he rang. A solemn bell clanged loudly, and a few moments later the little grille was opened, revealing the white-bearded face of the janitor, who instantly admitted us.He took me across the silent cloister, in the middle of which was a wonderful mediaeval well of wrought ironwork, and then along endless stone corridors, each lit by its single oil lamp, which rendered the place only more gloomy and depressing.From the chapel at the end of the great building came the low chanting of the monks, but beyond, the quiet was that of the grave. The dark, ghostly figures passed us noiselessly and seemed to draw aside into the darkness; the door of the refectory stood open, showing by the two or three dim lights magnificent carvings, wonderful frescoes and the two long rows of time-blackened oak benches at which the Brothers sat at meals.Suddenly my conductor stopped before a small door, which he opened with his key, and I found myself within a tiny, carpetless cubicle containing a truckle bed, a chair, a well-filled bookcase and a writing-table. Upon the wall was a large wooden crucifix before which he crossed himself on entering.“This is my home,” he explained in English. “Not very luxurious, it is true, but I would not exchange it for a palace in the world outside. Here we are all brothers, with the superior as our father to supply us with all our worldly wants, even to our snuff. There are no jealousies, no bickerings, no backbitings or rivalry. All are equal, all perfectly contented, for we have each one of us learnt the very difficult lesson of brotherly love.” And he drew the single chair for me to seat myself, for I was hot and tired after that long, steep ascent from the town.“It is surely a hard life,” I observed.“At first, yes. One must be strong in body and in mind to successfully pass the period of probation,” he answered. “But afterwards the Capuchin’s life is surely one of the pleasantest on earth, banded as we are to do good and to exercise charity in the name of Sant’ Antonio. But,” he added, with a smile, “I did not bring you here, signore, to endeavour to convert you from your Protestant faith. I asked you to accompany me, because you have told me what is a profound and remarkable mystery. You have told me of the death of Burton Blair, the man who was my friend, and to whose advantage it was to meet me in San Frediano to-night. There were reasons—the very strongest reasons a man could have—why he should have kept the appointment. But he has not done so. His enemies have willed it otherwise, and they have stolen his secret!” While he spoke he fumbled in a drawer of the little deal writing-table, and drew forth something, adding in deep earnestness—“You knew poor Blair intimately—more intimately, perhaps, than I did of later years. You knew his enemies as well as his friends. Tell me, have you ever met the original of either of these men?”And he held before my gaze two cabinet photographs.One of them was quite unfamiliar to me, but the other I recognised in an instant.“Why!” I said, “that’s my old friend Reginald Seton—Blair’s friend.”“No,” the monk declared in a hard, meaning tone, “not his friend, signore—his bitterest enemy.”

The effect of my words upon the burly Capuchin, whose form seemed almost gigantic on account of the thickness of his inartistic habit, was as curious as it was unexpected.

My announcement of Blair’s death seemed to completely unnerve him. Apparently he had been waiting there, keeping the appointment, all unconscious of the untimely end of the man with whom he had been on terms of such secret and intimate friendship.

“Tell me—tell me how it happened,” he gasped in Italian in a low, hushed voice, as though he feared that some eavesdropper might be lurking in those dark recesses.

In a few brief words I explained the truth, to which he listened in silence. Then, when I had finished, he muttered something, crossed himself, and, as the approaching footsteps of the sacristan aroused us both, we walked forward and out into the dusk of the broad piazza.

Old Carlini, was was lounging upon a bench smoking the end of a cigar, noticed us in an instant and I saw him open his eyes in wonderment, although further than that he betrayed no sign.

“Poverino! Poverino!” repeated the monk as we strolled together slowly beside the old red walls of the once-proud city. “To think that our poor friend Burton died so suddenly—and without a word!”

“Not exactly without a word,” I said. “He gave several directions, one of which was that he placed his daughter Mabel beneath my care.”

“Ah, the little Mabel,” he sighed. “Surely it is ten years since I saw her in Manchester. She was then about eleven, a tall, dark-haired, rather pretty child, a striking likeness of her mother—poor woman.”

“You knew her mother, then?” I asked in some surprise.

He nodded in the affirmative, but gave no further information.

Suddenly turning to me as we walked towards the city gate, the Ponto Santa Maria, where the uniformed officers of thedaziowere lounging ready to tax every pennyworth of food-stuff entering there, he demanded—

“How did you know that I had an appointment with our friend to-night?”

“By the letter which you wrote him, and which was found in his bag after his decease,” I responded frankly.

He grunted with distinct satisfaction. It struck me indeed as though he were apprehensive that Burton had before his death told me some details regarding his life. I recollected that curious cipher upon the playing-card, although I made no reference to it.

“Ah! I see!” he exclaimed presently. “But if that little wallet, or whatever it was, that he always wore either concealed within his clothes or suspended around his neck, is missing, does not it point to a tragedy—theft and murder?”

“There are distinct suspicions,” was my reply. “Although, according to the doctors, he died from a purely natural cause.”

“Ah! I don’t believe it!” cried the monk, fiercely clenching his fist. “One of them has succeeded at last in stealing that sachet of which he was always so very careful, and I’m positive that murder has been committed in order to conceal the theft.”

“One of whom?” I inquired anxiously.

“One of his enemies.”

“But are you aware what that little bag contained?”

“He never would tell me,” was the Capuchin’s reply, looking me straight in the face. “He only said that his secret was concealed within—and I have reason to believe that such was a fact.”

“But you knew his secret?” I said, my eyes full upon him.

I noted, by the change in his dark countenance, how my allegation caused him quick apprehension. He could not totally deny it, yet he was certainly seeking some means of misleading me.

“I only know what he explained to me,” he responded. “And that was not much, for, as you are aware, he was a most reticent man. He has long ago related to me, however, the somewhat romantic circumstances in which you met, what a good friend you were to him before his stroke of fortune, and how you and your friend—I forget his name—put Mabel to school at Bournemouth, and thus rescued her from that weary tramp which Burton himself had undertaken.”

“But why was he on tramp in that manner?” I asked. “To me it has always been an enigma.”

“And also to me. He was, I believe, in search of the key to that secret which he carried with him—the secret which, you say, he has bequeathed to you.”

“Did he reveal to you nothing more?” I inquired, recollecting that from this man’s remarks regarding Mabel’s youth, he and Blair must have been old friends.

“Nothing. His secret remained his own, and he revealed it to nobody always fearing betrayal.”

“But now that it is in other hands, what do you anticipate?” I inquired, still walking at his side, for we had passed out of the city and were out upon that wide, dirty road that led away to the Moriano Bridge and then fifteen miles up into the mountains to that leafy and rather gay summer resort well known to all Italians and some English, the Baths of Lucca.

“Well,” responded my companion, very gravely, “from what I learned in London on the occasion we met, I anticipate that poor Blair’s secret has been most ingeniously stolen, and will be put to good account by the person into whose possession it has now passed.”

“To the detriment of his daughter Mabel?”

“Most certainly. She must be the principal sufferer,” he replied, with just a suspicion of a sigh.

“Ah, if he had only confided his affairs in some one who, knowing the truth, might have combated this cunning conspiracy! But, as it is, we seem all utterly in the dark. Even his lawyers know nothing!”

“And you, to whom the secret is left, have actually lost it!” he added. “Yes, signore, the situation is indeed a most critical one.”

“In this affair, Signor Salvi,” I said, “being mutual friends of poor Blair, we must endeavour to do our best to discover and punish his enemies. Tell me, therefore, if you are aware of the source of our unfortunate friend’s vast wealth?”

“I am not Signor Salvi here,” was the monk’s quiet reply. “I am known as Fra Antonio of Arezzo, or Fra Antonio for short. The name of Salvi was given to me by poor Blair himself, who did not wish to introduce a Capuchin among his worldly friends as such. As to the source of his wealth, I believe I am acquainted with the truth.”

“Then tell me, tell me!” I cried anxiously.

“For it may give us the clue to these persons who had so successfully conspired against him.” Again the monk turned his dark, penetrating eyes upon me, those eyes that in the gloom of San Frediano had seemed so full of fire and yet so full of mystery.

“No,” he answered in a hard, decisive tone. “I am not permitted to tell anything. He is dead—let his memory rest.”

“But why?” I demanded. “In these circumstances of grave suspicion, and of the theft of the secret which is my property by right, it is surely your duty to explain what you know, in order that we may gain a clue? Recollect, too, that the future of his daughter depends upon the truth being revealed.”

“I can tell you nothing,” he repeated. “Much as I regret it, my lips are sealed.”

“Why?”

“By an oath taken years ago—before I entered the Order of the Capuchins,” he responded. Then after a pause, he added, with a sigh, “It is all strange—stranger perhaps than any man has dreamed—yet I can tell you nothing, Mr Greenwood, absolutely nothing.”

I was silent. His words were highly tantalising, as well as disappointing. I had not yet made up my mind whether he was actually my enemy or my friend.

At one moment he seemed simple, honest and straightforward as are all men of his religious order, yet at others there seemed within him that craft and cunning, that clever diplomacy and far-seeing acumen of the Jesuit, traits of a character warped into ingenuity and double-dealing.

The very fact that Burton Blair had always hidden from me his friendship—if friendship it were—for this stalwart monk with the bronzed and furrowed face, caused me to entertain a kind of vague distrust in him. And yet, when I recollected the tone of the letter he had written to Blair, how could I doubt but their friendship, if secret, was a real and genuine one? Nevertheless, I recollected those words I had overheard on the pavement of Leicester Square, and they caused me to ponder and to doubt.

I walked on beside this man, heedless of our destination. We were quite in the country now. The immobility of everything, the luminous brilliancy of the tints of that winter afterglow gave the grey, olive-clad Tuscan hills something of sadness. That great, calm silence over everything, that unchanging stillness in the air, those motionless lights and great shadows gave one the impression of a pause in the dizzy movement of centuries, of a reflectiveness, of an intense waiting, or rather a look of melancholy thrown back on a past anterior to suns and human beings, races and religions.

Before us, as we rounded a bend in the road, I saw a huge, white old monastery standing high upon the hillside half hidden by the grey-green trees.

It was the Convent of the Cappuccini, he told me—his home.

I halted for a moment, gazing upon the white, almost windowless building, scorched by three hundred summers, standing like a stronghold, as once it was, against the background of the purple Apennines. I listened to the clanking of the old bell that sent out its summons with the same note of age, the same old voice as in centuries gone. It was then, in that moment, that the charm of old-world Lucca and her beautiful surroundings became impressed upon me. I felt, for the first time, stealing up from everywhere, an atmosphere of separateness, as it were, from the rest of the world, of mystery—a living essence of what the place is—destructible, alas! but still impregnating all things, exhaling from all things—surely the dying soul of once-brilliant Tuscany.

And there beside me, overwhelming all my thoughts, as the shadow of the giant Sphinx falls lengthening upon the desert sands, stood that big, bronzed monk in the faded brown habit, his feet bare, his waist bound by a hempen cord, his countenance a mystery, yet within his heart the great secret which no power could induce him to divulge—the secret of wealth that had been bequeathed to me.

“Poor Blair is dead!” he repeated again and again in fairly good English, as though almost unable as yet to realise that his friend was no more. Nevertheless, I was slow to become convinced that he spoke seriously. He might be misleading me, after all.

At his invitation I accompanied him up the steep, winding road until we came to the ponderous gate of the monastery, at which he rang. A solemn bell clanged loudly, and a few moments later the little grille was opened, revealing the white-bearded face of the janitor, who instantly admitted us.

He took me across the silent cloister, in the middle of which was a wonderful mediaeval well of wrought ironwork, and then along endless stone corridors, each lit by its single oil lamp, which rendered the place only more gloomy and depressing.

From the chapel at the end of the great building came the low chanting of the monks, but beyond, the quiet was that of the grave. The dark, ghostly figures passed us noiselessly and seemed to draw aside into the darkness; the door of the refectory stood open, showing by the two or three dim lights magnificent carvings, wonderful frescoes and the two long rows of time-blackened oak benches at which the Brothers sat at meals.

Suddenly my conductor stopped before a small door, which he opened with his key, and I found myself within a tiny, carpetless cubicle containing a truckle bed, a chair, a well-filled bookcase and a writing-table. Upon the wall was a large wooden crucifix before which he crossed himself on entering.

“This is my home,” he explained in English. “Not very luxurious, it is true, but I would not exchange it for a palace in the world outside. Here we are all brothers, with the superior as our father to supply us with all our worldly wants, even to our snuff. There are no jealousies, no bickerings, no backbitings or rivalry. All are equal, all perfectly contented, for we have each one of us learnt the very difficult lesson of brotherly love.” And he drew the single chair for me to seat myself, for I was hot and tired after that long, steep ascent from the town.

“It is surely a hard life,” I observed.

“At first, yes. One must be strong in body and in mind to successfully pass the period of probation,” he answered. “But afterwards the Capuchin’s life is surely one of the pleasantest on earth, banded as we are to do good and to exercise charity in the name of Sant’ Antonio. But,” he added, with a smile, “I did not bring you here, signore, to endeavour to convert you from your Protestant faith. I asked you to accompany me, because you have told me what is a profound and remarkable mystery. You have told me of the death of Burton Blair, the man who was my friend, and to whose advantage it was to meet me in San Frediano to-night. There were reasons—the very strongest reasons a man could have—why he should have kept the appointment. But he has not done so. His enemies have willed it otherwise, and they have stolen his secret!” While he spoke he fumbled in a drawer of the little deal writing-table, and drew forth something, adding in deep earnestness—

“You knew poor Blair intimately—more intimately, perhaps, than I did of later years. You knew his enemies as well as his friends. Tell me, have you ever met the original of either of these men?”

And he held before my gaze two cabinet photographs.

One of them was quite unfamiliar to me, but the other I recognised in an instant.

“Why!” I said, “that’s my old friend Reginald Seton—Blair’s friend.”

“No,” the monk declared in a hard, meaning tone, “not his friend, signore—his bitterest enemy.”

Chapter Ten.The Man of Secrets.“I don’t understand you,” I exclaimed, resenting this charge against the man who was my most intimate friend. “Seton has been even a better friend to poor Blair than myself.”Fra Antonio smiled strangely and mysteriously, as only the subtle Italian can. He seemed to pity my ignorance, and inclined to humour me in my belief in Seton’s genuineness.“I know,” he laughed. “I know almost as much as you do upon the one side, while upon the other my knowledge extends somewhat further. All I can say is that I have watched, and have formed my own conclusions.”“That Seton was not his friend?”“That Seton was not his friend,” he repeated slowly and very distinctly.“But surely you make no direct charge against him?” I cried. “You surely don’t think he’s responsible for this tragedy—if tragedy it really is.”“I make no direct charge,” was his ambiguous reply. “Time will reveal the truth—no doubt.”I longed to ask him straight out whether he did not sometimes go under the name of Paolo Melandrini, yet I feared to do so lest I should arouse his suspicion unduly.“Time can only reveal that Reginald Seton has been one of the dead man’s best friends,” I said reflectively.“Outwardly, yes,” was the Capuchin’s dubious remark.“An enemy as deadly as the Ceco?” I inquired, watching his face the while.“The Ceco!” he gasped, instantly taken aback by my bold remark. “Who told you of him? What do you know regarding him?”The monk had evidently forgotten what he had written in that letter to Blair.“I know that he is in London,” I responded, taking my cue from his own words. “The girl is with him,” I added, utterly unaware however of the identity of the person referred to.“Well?” he asked.“And if they are in London it is surely for no good purpose?”“Ah!” he said. “Blair has told you something—told you of his suspicions?”“Of late he has gone about in daily dread of secret assassination,” I replied. “He was evidently afraid of the Ceco.”“And surely he had need to be,” exclaimed Fra Antonio, his dark, brilliant eyes again turned upon mine in the semi-darkness. “The Ceco is not an individual to be dealt with easily.”“But what took him to London?” I demanded. “Did he go with harmful intentions?”The burly monk shrugged his shoulders, answering—“Dick Dawson was never of a very benevolent disposition. He evidently discovered something, and swore to be avenged.”His remarks made plain one very important fact, namely, that the man who went by the nickname of the “blind man” in Italy was really an Englishman of the name of Dick Dawson—an adventurer most probably.“Then you suspect him of complicity in the theft of the secret?” I suggested.“Well, as the little sachet of chamois leather is missing, I am inclined to think that it must have passed into his hands.”“And the girl, what of her?”“His daughter, Dolly, will assist him, that’s plain. She’s as shrewd as her father, and possesses a woman’s cunning into the bargain—a dangerous girl, to say the least. I warned poor Blair of them both,” he added, suddenly, it seemed, recollecting his letter. “But I am glad you have recognised one of these photographs. His name is Seton, you say. Well, if he is your friend, take my advice and beware. Are you certain you have never seen this other man—a friend of Seton’s?” he asked very earnestly.I carried the picture in my hand to where the dim oil lamp was burning, and examined it very closely. It was a vignette of a long-faced, bald-headed, full-bearded man, wearing a stand-up collar, a black frock-coat and well-tied bow cravat. The stud in his shirt-front was somewhat peculiar, for it seemed like the miniature cross of some foreign order of chivalry, and produced a rather neat and novel effect. The eyes were those of a keen, crafty man, and the hollow cheeks gave the countenance a slightly haggard and striking appearance.It was a face that, to my recollection, I had never seen before, yet such were its peculiarities that they at once became photographed indelibly upon my memory.I told him of my failure to recognise who it was, whereupon he urged—“When you return, watch the movements of your so-called friend Seton, and you will perhaps meet his friend. When you do, write to me here, and leave him to me.” And he replaced the photograph in the drawer, but as he did so my quick eye detected that within was a playing-card, the seven of clubs, with some letters written upon it very similar to those upon the card in my pocket. I mentioned it, but he merely smiled and quickly closed the drawer.Yet surely the fact of the cipher being in his possession was more than strange.“Do you ever travel away from Lucca?” I inquired at last, recollecting how I had met him at Blair’s table in Grosvenor Square, but not at all satisfied regarding the discovery of the inscribed card.“Seldom—very seldom,” he answered. “It is so difficult to obtain permission, and then it is only given to visit relatives. If there is any monastery in the vicinity of our destination we must beg our bed there, in preference to remaining in a private house. The rules sound irksome to you,” he added with a smile. “But I assure you they do not gall us in the least. They are beneficial to man’s happiness and comfort, all of them.”Again I turned the conversation, endeavouring to ascertain some facts concerning the dead man’s mysterious secret, which I somehow felt convinced was known to him. But all to no avail. He would tell me nothing.All he explained was that the reason of the appointment in Lucca that evening was a very strong one, and that if alive the millionaire would undoubtedly have kept it.“He was in the habit of meeting me at certain intervals either in the Church of San Frediano, or at other places in Lucca, in Pescia, or Pistoja,” the monk said. “We generally varied the place of meeting from time to time.”“And that, of course, accounts for his mysterious absences from home,” I remarked, for his movements were frequently very erratic, so that even Mabel was unaware of his address. He was generally supposed, however, to be in the North of England or in Scotland. No one had any idea that he travelled so far afield as Central Italy.The monk’s statement also made it plain that Blair had some very strong motive for keeping these frequent appointments. Fra Antonio, his secret friend, had undoubtedly also been his most intimate and most trusted one.Why had he kept this strange and mysterious friendship from us all—even from Mabel?I gazed upon the Italian’s hard, sunburnt face and tried to penetrate the mystery written there, but in vain. No man can keep a secret like the priest of the confessional, or the monk in his cell.“And what is your intention, now that poor Blair is dead?” I asked at length.“My intention, like yours, is to discover the truth,” he replied. “It will be a difficult matter, no doubt, but I trust that we shall, in the end, succeed, and that you will regain the lost secret.”“But may not Blair’s enemies make use of it in the meantime?” I queried.“Ah! of course we cannot prevent that,” answered Fra Antonio. “We have to look to the future, and allow the present to take care of itself. You, in London, will do your best to discover whether Blair has met with foul play and at whose hands, while I, here in Italy, will try to find out whether there was any further motive than the theft of the secret.”“But if the little chamois-bag had been stolen, would not Blair himself have missed it?” I suggested. “He was quite conscious for several hours before he died.”“He might have forgotten it. Men’s memories often fail them completely in the hours preceding death.”Night had fallen before the great wooden clappers, used to arouse the monks to go to prayers at two o’clock in the morning, resounded through the cloister as a reminder that I, a stranger, must take my departure.Fra Antonio rose, lit a great old brass lantern, and conducted me along those silent corridors, out across the small piazza and down the hillside to the main road which lay straight and white in the darkness.Then, having directed me on the road, he grasped my hand in his big palm, rough through hard toil at his patch of garden, and said—“Rely upon me to do my best. I knew poor Blair—yes, knew him better than you did, Signor Greenwood. I knew, too, something of his remarkable secret, and therefore I am aware how strange and how mysterious are all the circumstances. I shall work on here, making inquiries, while you return to London and pursue yours. I would, however, make the suggestion to you that if you meet Dick Dawson strike up a friendship with him, and with Dolly. They are a strange pair, but friendship with them may be profitable.”“What!” I exclaimed. “Friendship with the man whom you declare was one of Blair’s bitterest enemies?”“And why not? Is it not diplomacy to be well received in the enemy’s camp? Recollect that your own stake in this affair is the greatest of any one’s. The secret is bequeathed to you—the secret of Burton Blair’s millions!”“And I intend to recover it,” I declared firmly.“I only hope you will, signore,” he said in a voice which to me sounded full of a double meaning. “I only hope you will.”Then wishing me “Addio, e buona fortuna,” Fra Antonio, the Capuchin and man of secrets, turned and left me standing in the dark highway.Hardly had I advanced fifty yards before a short dark figure loomed out from the shadow of some bushes, and by the voice that hailed me I knew it to be old Babbo, whom I had believed had grown tired of awaiting me. He had, however, evidently followed us from the church, and seeing us enter the monastery had patiently awaited my return.“Has the signore discovered what he wished?” inquired the old Italian, quickly.“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, theCroce 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 theCroce 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.

“I don’t understand you,” I exclaimed, resenting this charge against the man who was my most intimate friend. “Seton has been even a better friend to poor Blair than myself.”

Fra Antonio smiled strangely and mysteriously, as only the subtle Italian can. He seemed to pity my ignorance, and inclined to humour me in my belief in Seton’s genuineness.

“I know,” he laughed. “I know almost as much as you do upon the one side, while upon the other my knowledge extends somewhat further. All I can say is that I have watched, and have formed my own conclusions.”

“That Seton was not his friend?”

“That Seton was not his friend,” he repeated slowly and very distinctly.

“But surely you make no direct charge against him?” I cried. “You surely don’t think he’s responsible for this tragedy—if tragedy it really is.”

“I make no direct charge,” was his ambiguous reply. “Time will reveal the truth—no doubt.”

I longed to ask him straight out whether he did not sometimes go under the name of Paolo Melandrini, yet I feared to do so lest I should arouse his suspicion unduly.

“Time can only reveal that Reginald Seton has been one of the dead man’s best friends,” I said reflectively.

“Outwardly, yes,” was the Capuchin’s dubious remark.

“An enemy as deadly as the Ceco?” I inquired, watching his face the while.

“The Ceco!” he gasped, instantly taken aback by my bold remark. “Who told you of him? What do you know regarding him?”

The monk had evidently forgotten what he had written in that letter to Blair.

“I know that he is in London,” I responded, taking my cue from his own words. “The girl is with him,” I added, utterly unaware however of the identity of the person referred to.

“Well?” he asked.

“And if they are in London it is surely for no good purpose?”

“Ah!” he said. “Blair has told you something—told you of his suspicions?”

“Of late he has gone about in daily dread of secret assassination,” I replied. “He was evidently afraid of the Ceco.”

“And surely he had need to be,” exclaimed Fra Antonio, his dark, brilliant eyes again turned upon mine in the semi-darkness. “The Ceco is not an individual to be dealt with easily.”

“But what took him to London?” I demanded. “Did he go with harmful intentions?”

The burly monk shrugged his shoulders, answering—

“Dick Dawson was never of a very benevolent disposition. He evidently discovered something, and swore to be avenged.”

His remarks made plain one very important fact, namely, that the man who went by the nickname of the “blind man” in Italy was really an Englishman of the name of Dick Dawson—an adventurer most probably.

“Then you suspect him of complicity in the theft of the secret?” I suggested.

“Well, as the little sachet of chamois leather is missing, I am inclined to think that it must have passed into his hands.”

“And the girl, what of her?”

“His daughter, Dolly, will assist him, that’s plain. She’s as shrewd as her father, and possesses a woman’s cunning into the bargain—a dangerous girl, to say the least. I warned poor Blair of them both,” he added, suddenly, it seemed, recollecting his letter. “But I am glad you have recognised one of these photographs. His name is Seton, you say. Well, if he is your friend, take my advice and beware. Are you certain you have never seen this other man—a friend of Seton’s?” he asked very earnestly.

I carried the picture in my hand to where the dim oil lamp was burning, and examined it very closely. It was a vignette of a long-faced, bald-headed, full-bearded man, wearing a stand-up collar, a black frock-coat and well-tied bow cravat. The stud in his shirt-front was somewhat peculiar, for it seemed like the miniature cross of some foreign order of chivalry, and produced a rather neat and novel effect. The eyes were those of a keen, crafty man, and the hollow cheeks gave the countenance a slightly haggard and striking appearance.

It was a face that, to my recollection, I had never seen before, yet such were its peculiarities that they at once became photographed indelibly upon my memory.

I told him of my failure to recognise who it was, whereupon he urged—

“When you return, watch the movements of your so-called friend Seton, and you will perhaps meet his friend. When you do, write to me here, and leave him to me.” And he replaced the photograph in the drawer, but as he did so my quick eye detected that within was a playing-card, the seven of clubs, with some letters written upon it very similar to those upon the card in my pocket. I mentioned it, but he merely smiled and quickly closed the drawer.

Yet surely the fact of the cipher being in his possession was more than strange.

“Do you ever travel away from Lucca?” I inquired at last, recollecting how I had met him at Blair’s table in Grosvenor Square, but not at all satisfied regarding the discovery of the inscribed card.

“Seldom—very seldom,” he answered. “It is so difficult to obtain permission, and then it is only given to visit relatives. If there is any monastery in the vicinity of our destination we must beg our bed there, in preference to remaining in a private house. The rules sound irksome to you,” he added with a smile. “But I assure you they do not gall us in the least. They are beneficial to man’s happiness and comfort, all of them.”

Again I turned the conversation, endeavouring to ascertain some facts concerning the dead man’s mysterious secret, which I somehow felt convinced was known to him. But all to no avail. He would tell me nothing.

All he explained was that the reason of the appointment in Lucca that evening was a very strong one, and that if alive the millionaire would undoubtedly have kept it.

“He was in the habit of meeting me at certain intervals either in the Church of San Frediano, or at other places in Lucca, in Pescia, or Pistoja,” the monk said. “We generally varied the place of meeting from time to time.”

“And that, of course, accounts for his mysterious absences from home,” I remarked, for his movements were frequently very erratic, so that even Mabel was unaware of his address. He was generally supposed, however, to be in the North of England or in Scotland. No one had any idea that he travelled so far afield as Central Italy.

The monk’s statement also made it plain that Blair had some very strong motive for keeping these frequent appointments. Fra Antonio, his secret friend, had undoubtedly also been his most intimate and most trusted one.

Why had he kept this strange and mysterious friendship from us all—even from Mabel?

I gazed upon the Italian’s hard, sunburnt face and tried to penetrate the mystery written there, but in vain. No man can keep a secret like the priest of the confessional, or the monk in his cell.

“And what is your intention, now that poor Blair is dead?” I asked at length.

“My intention, like yours, is to discover the truth,” he replied. “It will be a difficult matter, no doubt, but I trust that we shall, in the end, succeed, and that you will regain the lost secret.”

“But may not Blair’s enemies make use of it in the meantime?” I queried.

“Ah! of course we cannot prevent that,” answered Fra Antonio. “We have to look to the future, and allow the present to take care of itself. You, in London, will do your best to discover whether Blair has met with foul play and at whose hands, while I, here in Italy, will try to find out whether there was any further motive than the theft of the secret.”

“But if the little chamois-bag had been stolen, would not Blair himself have missed it?” I suggested. “He was quite conscious for several hours before he died.”

“He might have forgotten it. Men’s memories often fail them completely in the hours preceding death.”

Night had fallen before the great wooden clappers, used to arouse the monks to go to prayers at two o’clock in the morning, resounded through the cloister as a reminder that I, a stranger, must take my departure.

Fra Antonio rose, lit a great old brass lantern, and conducted me along those silent corridors, out across the small piazza and down the hillside to the main road which lay straight and white in the darkness.

Then, having directed me on the road, he grasped my hand in his big palm, rough through hard toil at his patch of garden, and said—

“Rely upon me to do my best. I knew poor Blair—yes, knew him better than you did, Signor Greenwood. I knew, too, something of his remarkable secret, and therefore I am aware how strange and how mysterious are all the circumstances. I shall work on here, making inquiries, while you return to London and pursue yours. I would, however, make the suggestion to you that if you meet Dick Dawson strike up a friendship with him, and with Dolly. They are a strange pair, but friendship with them may be profitable.”

“What!” I exclaimed. “Friendship with the man whom you declare was one of Blair’s bitterest enemies?”

“And why not? Is it not diplomacy to be well received in the enemy’s camp? Recollect that your own stake in this affair is the greatest of any one’s. The secret is bequeathed to you—the secret of Burton Blair’s millions!”

“And I intend to recover it,” I declared firmly.

“I only hope you will, signore,” he said in a voice which to me sounded full of a double meaning. “I only hope you will.”

Then wishing me “Addio, e buona fortuna,” Fra Antonio, the Capuchin and man of secrets, turned and left me standing in the dark highway.

Hardly had I advanced fifty yards before a short dark figure loomed out from the shadow of some bushes, and by the voice that hailed me I knew it to be old Babbo, whom I had believed had grown tired of awaiting me. He had, however, evidently followed us from the church, and seeing us enter the monastery had patiently awaited my return.

“Has the signore discovered what he wished?” inquired the old Italian, quickly.

“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, theCroce 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 theCroce 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 theCross 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, thepadronethought, 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, signore. 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 threewagon-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?

From inquiries made by old Babbo next morning at theCross 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, thepadronethought, 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, signore. 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 threewagon-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?”“I have received information privately,” was his evasive answer. “But before proceeding further, I thought it best to call upon you, in order that we might from the outset thoroughly understand each other. I know that both of you have been Blair’s most intimate and kindest friends, while owing to certain somewhat curious circumstances I have been compelled, until to-day, to remain entirely in the background, his friend in secret as it were. I am also well aware of the circumstances in which you met, of your charity to my dead friend and to his daughter—in fact, he told me everything, for he had no secrets from me. Yet you on your part,” he continued, glancing at us from one to the other with that single blue eye, “you must have regarded his sudden wealth as a complete mystery.”“We certainly have done,” I remarked.“Ah!” he exclaimed quickly in a tone of ill-concealed satisfaction. “Then he has revealed to you nothing!”And in an instant I saw that I had inadvertently told the fellow exactly what he most desired to know.

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?”

“I have received information privately,” was his evasive answer. “But before proceeding further, I thought it best to call upon you, in order that we might from the outset thoroughly understand each other. I know that both of you have been Blair’s most intimate and kindest friends, while owing to certain somewhat curious circumstances I have been compelled, until to-day, to remain entirely in the background, his friend in secret as it were. I am also well aware of the circumstances in which you met, of your charity to my dead friend and to his daughter—in fact, he told me everything, for he had no secrets from me. Yet you on your part,” he continued, glancing at us from one to the other with that single blue eye, “you must have regarded his sudden wealth as a complete mystery.”

“We certainly have done,” I remarked.

“Ah!” he exclaimed quickly in a tone of ill-concealed satisfaction. “Then he has revealed to you nothing!”

And in an instant I saw that I had inadvertently told the fellow exactly what he most desired to know.

Back to IndexNext