Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.Doctor Pellegrini’s Opinion.I have very little recollection of what occurred immediately afterwards, for I was far too confused and full of pain.All I remember was that I rushed downstairs to old Nello, crying that I had been suddenly taken unwell; and he, seeing my pale, distorted features, was greatly alarmed. I recollected at the moment that I had an appointment with the wife of a wine-grower, with whom I was in treaty for the purchase of an exquisite little fourteenth-century picture of St. Francis of Assisi; and, telling my faithful man that if a lady called he was to ask her to wait, I dashed out, sprang into a cab, and drove along the sun-blanched sea-road into Leghorn, where, in a high, old palace in an unfashionable quarter, I discovered my friend, Doctor Pellegrini, a short, stout, round-faced Italian, with iron-grey hair and a pair of dark eyes which had a hard and severe expression.“Why, my dear signore,” he cried in Italian as I entered his big, half-darkened study, the marble floor carpetless, and furnished barely in Tuscan style, “whatever ails you?”“I’ve been poisoned,signor dottore!” I gasped.“What are your symptoms? Tell me quickly,” he demanded, springing towards me and taking my wrist quickly, being convinced that there was no time to lose.“I have great difficulty in breathing,” I managed to gasp. “And now there seems to be a strange, biting taste as though I’d swallowed some quinine. My neck aches and seems to be bending back, and I am in great agony.”“Very likely it is strychnine,” the professor remarked. “How did you take it? Was it an accident?”“I will explain later,” I responded. “Do give me something to relieve these terrible pains. The poison, I can explain, is not strychnia, but the fatal secret compound of the Borgias.”“The Borgias! Rubbish!” he snapped. “All imagination, most probably.”“But I tell you it is. I have been envenomed by a poison, the secret of which is unknown, and the antidote was lost ages ago.”The doctor smiled in disbelief, probably remarking within himself that the English were a queer race, with all their fads, fancies, tea drinking, and smart tailoring.“Well,” he said. “I’ll first give you a little chloroform, and then see what we can do. Don’t upset yourself, my dear signore. We shall find an antidote somehow.”And he gave me some chloroform, which produced insensibility. Then, on recovering consciousness, I found myself on a bed in a room almost totally dark, with blankets piled upon me until they had reduced me to a state of profuse perspiration.My head felt as though bound tightly with a band of steel, but I had no further difficulty in breathing. My limbs were no longer cramped, and my neck was again movable.I was better, and told Pellegrini, who was seated patiently by my side watching me.“Of course,” he said, with that cool, cynical air of his which caused one instinctively to dislike him on first acquaintance.“But I was very bad,” I declared. “I’ve never experienced such excruciating pains before in all my life.”“And I may tell you,” he said in the same calm tone, “that you’ve never been nearer death than you were an hour ago. I certainly thought you wouldn’t pull through. I telephoned to Cassuto at the hospital, and he rushed round and helped me. I didn’t believe you had really been poisoned. It certainly was not strychnia after all, although the symptoms were very like it. Tell me how it happened.”I turned on my bed towards him and briefly related how I had purchased the curious volume, and how, on two separate occasions, I had been suddenly seized while examining the secret history written at the end.“H’m!” he grunted dubiously; “very remarkable, especially as the record mentions the unknown poison used by Lucrezia Borgia and her brother. A matter for investigation, certainly. You must allow me to submit one of the vellum pages to analysis; and perhaps we might clear up forever the ingredients of the compound which has so long remained a mystery.”“Most willingly,” I answered. “We may make a discovery of the utmost interest to toxicologists. Hitherto they have declared that to produce a substance sufficiently venomous to penetrate the skin and cause death to those who touch it is impossible. Here, however, I think we have an illustration of it.”“It really seems so,” he answered thoughtfully. “I should strongly advise you, when handling the book again, to wear gloves as a precaution. Having once narrowly escaped death, as you have, you cannot be too careful.”“I’ll take your advice,signore dottore,” I responded. “And I’ve to thank you for saving me, as you’ve done today.”“You had a narrow escape—a very narrow one,” he remarked. “I do not think that in all my experience I have seen a man come so near death, and then recover. When you first told me that your hands had become impregnated with the Borgia poison I was, of course, sceptical. You English sometimes become so very imaginative when you live here in our climate. But I am compelled to admit that the symptoms are not those of any known poison; and if what you tell me is correct, then it really appears as though we are at last actually in possession of an object envenomed with the ancient compound about which so much has been written during the past three centuries. For my own part, I am deeply interested in the curious affair, and shall be only too happy to investigate it analytically, if you will allow me. My friend Marini, the professor of chemistry at Pavia, is at present here for the sea-bathing, and he will, I am sure, help me. As you know, he is one of the most expert analysts in Italy.”And so it was agreed that a chemical investigation should be made, in order to discover, if possible, the secret of the Borgia poison which was so subtle and could be so regulated that no effect might be felt for half an hour or for a month, as the poisoner wished, but the end was always the same—death.By secret use of that fatal compound the Duke Caesar detto Borgia undoubtedly swept away his enemies, and more than one old chronicler alleges that his father, the Pope Alexander VI. himself, did not hesitate to use it to rid himself of obnoxious cardinals who were wealthy, or other persons who aroused his enmity. He fully lived up to his official title of Ruler of the World, and it is more than likely that by the aid of this secret compound he broke the back of the turbulent, selfish baronage which had ravaged the papal states for centuries. Certainly his reign was full of diabolical atrocities and wanton, ingenious cruelty, documentary evidence of which is still preserved in the secret archives of the Vatican and of Venice. As to the alleged crimes of the beautiful Lucrezia, a long tress of whose yellow hair is still preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, those who have read Italian history know well how she has been represented as placed outside of the pale of humanity by her wantonness, her vices, and her crimes. Yet what was written in that curious record of Godfrey Lovel, soldier, courtier, and monk by turns, seemed to demonstrate that in her youth, with no initiative, no choice permitted to her, she was rather the too pliant instrument in the hands of Alexander and his son Caesar.Anyhow, the fact remained that the writer of that secret record was absolutely in the confidence of Lucrezia Borgia, and also in possession of some of the venom, with which, in all probability, he envenomed the book in order that those who gained the secrets it contained should never live to profit by them.Knowledge of the secret written there, he alleged, would place its possessor among the greatest upon earth. Was not that sufficient to arouse one’s curiosity to proceed—to continue handling those envenomed pages, unconsciously seeking his own doom?Surely the secret must be an important one, placed on record upon vellum, and yet so protected that the seeker after it must inevitably die ere the entire truth could be revealed.The whole affair was most puzzling. As I sat in the swift, open cab that took me back along the sea-road to Antignano, the crimson sun was setting, and the gaily dressed Italian crowd was promenading under the ilexes and acacias beside the Mediterranean. Leghorn is a fashionable bathing-place during July and August, and from the hour when the sun sinks behind Gorgona until far into the night no fairer prospect than the Viale Regina Margherita, as the beautiful promenade is called, with its open-air cafés and big bathing establishments, can be found in the south of Europe.Through the little wood that lies between the fashionable village of Ardenza and the sea, where the oleanders were in the full blaze of their glory, my cab sped homeward; and having left the gaiety of the outskirts of Leghorn behind, I fell to reflecting upon the future, and wondering what, after all, was the hidden truth contained in The Closed Book—the knowledge that would place its possessor among the greatest on earth?I thought of the strange circumstances in which I had purchased the old tome, of the inexplicable manner of Father Bernardo, of the old hunchback’s evil face at the church window, and, most of all, of that singularly handsome young woman in black whom I had encountered in the prior’s study—the woman with whom the fat priest had spoken in private.Why should Father Bernardo have urged me to relinquish my bargain? Why should Graniani have come to me on the same errand, and have warned me? Surely they could not be aware that the pages were envenomed, and just as surely they could have no motive in preventing my falling a victim!If they were acting from purely humane motives, they would surely have explained the truth to me.Besides, when I reflected, it became apparent that the vellum leaves at the end whereon was inscribed old Godfrey’s chronicle had not been opened for many years, as a number of them had become stuck together by damp at the edge, and I had been compelled to separate them with a knife.At last I sprang out, paid the driver, passed through the echoing marble hall of thevillino, and up the stairs towards my study.Old Nello, who followed me, greeted me with the usual “Ben tornato, signore,” and then added, “The lady called to see you, waited about a quarter of an hour in your study, and then left, promising to call tomorrow.”“She said nothing about the little panel of St. Francis?”“Nothing, signore. But she seemed an inquisitive young lady—from Bologna, I should say, from her accent.”“Young lady!” I exclaimed. “Why, the wine-grower’s wife is sixty, if a day. Was this lady young?”“About twenty-six, signore,” was his reply. “Hers was a pretty face—like a picture—only she seemed to wear a very sad look. She was dressed all in black, as though in mourning.”“What?” I cried, halting on the stairs, for the description of my visitor tallied with that of the woman I had seen in the priest’s study in Florence and afterwards in Leghorn. “Had she black eyes and a rather protruding, pointed chin?”“She had, signore.”“And she was alone in my study a quarter of an hour?” I exclaimed.“Yes. I looked through the keyhole, and, seeing her prying over your papers, I entered. Then she excused herself from remaining longer, and said she would call again.”“But that’s not the woman I expected, Nello?” And with a bound I rushed up the remaining stairs into the room.A single glance around told me the truth.The Closed Book had disappeared! It had been stolen by that woman, who had been following me, and whose face lived in my memory every hour.I rushed around the room like a madman, asking Nello if he had placed the volume anywhere; but he had not. He recollected seeing it open upon my writing-table when he had ushered the visitor in, and had not thought of it until I now recalled the truth to him.My treasure had been stolen; and as I turned towards my table I saw lying upon the blotting-pad a sheet of my own note paper, upon which was written in Italian, in an educated feminine hand, the axiom of Caesar Borgia as chronicled in the missing book:“That which is not done at noon can be done at sunset.”

I have very little recollection of what occurred immediately afterwards, for I was far too confused and full of pain.

All I remember was that I rushed downstairs to old Nello, crying that I had been suddenly taken unwell; and he, seeing my pale, distorted features, was greatly alarmed. I recollected at the moment that I had an appointment with the wife of a wine-grower, with whom I was in treaty for the purchase of an exquisite little fourteenth-century picture of St. Francis of Assisi; and, telling my faithful man that if a lady called he was to ask her to wait, I dashed out, sprang into a cab, and drove along the sun-blanched sea-road into Leghorn, where, in a high, old palace in an unfashionable quarter, I discovered my friend, Doctor Pellegrini, a short, stout, round-faced Italian, with iron-grey hair and a pair of dark eyes which had a hard and severe expression.

“Why, my dear signore,” he cried in Italian as I entered his big, half-darkened study, the marble floor carpetless, and furnished barely in Tuscan style, “whatever ails you?”

“I’ve been poisoned,signor dottore!” I gasped.

“What are your symptoms? Tell me quickly,” he demanded, springing towards me and taking my wrist quickly, being convinced that there was no time to lose.

“I have great difficulty in breathing,” I managed to gasp. “And now there seems to be a strange, biting taste as though I’d swallowed some quinine. My neck aches and seems to be bending back, and I am in great agony.”

“Very likely it is strychnine,” the professor remarked. “How did you take it? Was it an accident?”

“I will explain later,” I responded. “Do give me something to relieve these terrible pains. The poison, I can explain, is not strychnia, but the fatal secret compound of the Borgias.”

“The Borgias! Rubbish!” he snapped. “All imagination, most probably.”

“But I tell you it is. I have been envenomed by a poison, the secret of which is unknown, and the antidote was lost ages ago.”

The doctor smiled in disbelief, probably remarking within himself that the English were a queer race, with all their fads, fancies, tea drinking, and smart tailoring.

“Well,” he said. “I’ll first give you a little chloroform, and then see what we can do. Don’t upset yourself, my dear signore. We shall find an antidote somehow.”

And he gave me some chloroform, which produced insensibility. Then, on recovering consciousness, I found myself on a bed in a room almost totally dark, with blankets piled upon me until they had reduced me to a state of profuse perspiration.

My head felt as though bound tightly with a band of steel, but I had no further difficulty in breathing. My limbs were no longer cramped, and my neck was again movable.

I was better, and told Pellegrini, who was seated patiently by my side watching me.

“Of course,” he said, with that cool, cynical air of his which caused one instinctively to dislike him on first acquaintance.

“But I was very bad,” I declared. “I’ve never experienced such excruciating pains before in all my life.”

“And I may tell you,” he said in the same calm tone, “that you’ve never been nearer death than you were an hour ago. I certainly thought you wouldn’t pull through. I telephoned to Cassuto at the hospital, and he rushed round and helped me. I didn’t believe you had really been poisoned. It certainly was not strychnia after all, although the symptoms were very like it. Tell me how it happened.”

I turned on my bed towards him and briefly related how I had purchased the curious volume, and how, on two separate occasions, I had been suddenly seized while examining the secret history written at the end.

“H’m!” he grunted dubiously; “very remarkable, especially as the record mentions the unknown poison used by Lucrezia Borgia and her brother. A matter for investigation, certainly. You must allow me to submit one of the vellum pages to analysis; and perhaps we might clear up forever the ingredients of the compound which has so long remained a mystery.”

“Most willingly,” I answered. “We may make a discovery of the utmost interest to toxicologists. Hitherto they have declared that to produce a substance sufficiently venomous to penetrate the skin and cause death to those who touch it is impossible. Here, however, I think we have an illustration of it.”

“It really seems so,” he answered thoughtfully. “I should strongly advise you, when handling the book again, to wear gloves as a precaution. Having once narrowly escaped death, as you have, you cannot be too careful.”

“I’ll take your advice,signore dottore,” I responded. “And I’ve to thank you for saving me, as you’ve done today.”

“You had a narrow escape—a very narrow one,” he remarked. “I do not think that in all my experience I have seen a man come so near death, and then recover. When you first told me that your hands had become impregnated with the Borgia poison I was, of course, sceptical. You English sometimes become so very imaginative when you live here in our climate. But I am compelled to admit that the symptoms are not those of any known poison; and if what you tell me is correct, then it really appears as though we are at last actually in possession of an object envenomed with the ancient compound about which so much has been written during the past three centuries. For my own part, I am deeply interested in the curious affair, and shall be only too happy to investigate it analytically, if you will allow me. My friend Marini, the professor of chemistry at Pavia, is at present here for the sea-bathing, and he will, I am sure, help me. As you know, he is one of the most expert analysts in Italy.”

And so it was agreed that a chemical investigation should be made, in order to discover, if possible, the secret of the Borgia poison which was so subtle and could be so regulated that no effect might be felt for half an hour or for a month, as the poisoner wished, but the end was always the same—death.

By secret use of that fatal compound the Duke Caesar detto Borgia undoubtedly swept away his enemies, and more than one old chronicler alleges that his father, the Pope Alexander VI. himself, did not hesitate to use it to rid himself of obnoxious cardinals who were wealthy, or other persons who aroused his enmity. He fully lived up to his official title of Ruler of the World, and it is more than likely that by the aid of this secret compound he broke the back of the turbulent, selfish baronage which had ravaged the papal states for centuries. Certainly his reign was full of diabolical atrocities and wanton, ingenious cruelty, documentary evidence of which is still preserved in the secret archives of the Vatican and of Venice. As to the alleged crimes of the beautiful Lucrezia, a long tress of whose yellow hair is still preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, those who have read Italian history know well how she has been represented as placed outside of the pale of humanity by her wantonness, her vices, and her crimes. Yet what was written in that curious record of Godfrey Lovel, soldier, courtier, and monk by turns, seemed to demonstrate that in her youth, with no initiative, no choice permitted to her, she was rather the too pliant instrument in the hands of Alexander and his son Caesar.

Anyhow, the fact remained that the writer of that secret record was absolutely in the confidence of Lucrezia Borgia, and also in possession of some of the venom, with which, in all probability, he envenomed the book in order that those who gained the secrets it contained should never live to profit by them.

Knowledge of the secret written there, he alleged, would place its possessor among the greatest upon earth. Was not that sufficient to arouse one’s curiosity to proceed—to continue handling those envenomed pages, unconsciously seeking his own doom?

Surely the secret must be an important one, placed on record upon vellum, and yet so protected that the seeker after it must inevitably die ere the entire truth could be revealed.

The whole affair was most puzzling. As I sat in the swift, open cab that took me back along the sea-road to Antignano, the crimson sun was setting, and the gaily dressed Italian crowd was promenading under the ilexes and acacias beside the Mediterranean. Leghorn is a fashionable bathing-place during July and August, and from the hour when the sun sinks behind Gorgona until far into the night no fairer prospect than the Viale Regina Margherita, as the beautiful promenade is called, with its open-air cafés and big bathing establishments, can be found in the south of Europe.

Through the little wood that lies between the fashionable village of Ardenza and the sea, where the oleanders were in the full blaze of their glory, my cab sped homeward; and having left the gaiety of the outskirts of Leghorn behind, I fell to reflecting upon the future, and wondering what, after all, was the hidden truth contained in The Closed Book—the knowledge that would place its possessor among the greatest on earth?

I thought of the strange circumstances in which I had purchased the old tome, of the inexplicable manner of Father Bernardo, of the old hunchback’s evil face at the church window, and, most of all, of that singularly handsome young woman in black whom I had encountered in the prior’s study—the woman with whom the fat priest had spoken in private.

Why should Father Bernardo have urged me to relinquish my bargain? Why should Graniani have come to me on the same errand, and have warned me? Surely they could not be aware that the pages were envenomed, and just as surely they could have no motive in preventing my falling a victim!

If they were acting from purely humane motives, they would surely have explained the truth to me.

Besides, when I reflected, it became apparent that the vellum leaves at the end whereon was inscribed old Godfrey’s chronicle had not been opened for many years, as a number of them had become stuck together by damp at the edge, and I had been compelled to separate them with a knife.

At last I sprang out, paid the driver, passed through the echoing marble hall of thevillino, and up the stairs towards my study.

Old Nello, who followed me, greeted me with the usual “Ben tornato, signore,” and then added, “The lady called to see you, waited about a quarter of an hour in your study, and then left, promising to call tomorrow.”

“She said nothing about the little panel of St. Francis?”

“Nothing, signore. But she seemed an inquisitive young lady—from Bologna, I should say, from her accent.”

“Young lady!” I exclaimed. “Why, the wine-grower’s wife is sixty, if a day. Was this lady young?”

“About twenty-six, signore,” was his reply. “Hers was a pretty face—like a picture—only she seemed to wear a very sad look. She was dressed all in black, as though in mourning.”

“What?” I cried, halting on the stairs, for the description of my visitor tallied with that of the woman I had seen in the priest’s study in Florence and afterwards in Leghorn. “Had she black eyes and a rather protruding, pointed chin?”

“She had, signore.”

“And she was alone in my study a quarter of an hour?” I exclaimed.

“Yes. I looked through the keyhole, and, seeing her prying over your papers, I entered. Then she excused herself from remaining longer, and said she would call again.”

“But that’s not the woman I expected, Nello?” And with a bound I rushed up the remaining stairs into the room.

A single glance around told me the truth.

The Closed Book had disappeared! It had been stolen by that woman, who had been following me, and whose face lived in my memory every hour.

I rushed around the room like a madman, asking Nello if he had placed the volume anywhere; but he had not. He recollected seeing it open upon my writing-table when he had ushered the visitor in, and had not thought of it until I now recalled the truth to him.

My treasure had been stolen; and as I turned towards my table I saw lying upon the blotting-pad a sheet of my own note paper, upon which was written in Italian, in an educated feminine hand, the axiom of Caesar Borgia as chronicled in the missing book:

“That which is not done at noon can be done at sunset.”

Chapter Ten.Across Europe.The Closed Book had been filched from me at the very moment when I was about to learn the secret it contained.I put a few well-directed questions to Nello, and became confirmed in my suspicion that the woman who had stolen it was actually the same whose face had so attracted me that it had lived within my memory every moment since our first meeting.Curious how the faces of some women haunt us, even when we have no desire for their affection! The fascination of a woman’s eyes is one of the unaccountable mysteries of life, being far beyond human ken or human control, and yet one of the most potent factors in man’s existence.In the half-open drawer of my writing-table were certain private papers that I had taken from my despatch-box two days before, intending to send them to my solicitors in London, and these the unknown in black had apparently been examining. She had called with a fixed purpose, which she had accomplished—namely, to pry into my private affairs, and to gain possession of my treasured Arnoldus, the Book of Secrets.As I knew Tuscany and the Tuscans so well, this ingenious conspiracy was scarcely surprising. The little plots, often harmless enough, that I had detected about me during my residence by the Mediterranean had shown me what a cleverly diplomatic race they were, and with what patient secretiveness they work towards their own ends. It annoyed me, however, to think that I should thus fall a victim to that handsome woman’s ingenuity. Veiled as she had been in Father Bernardo’s study, I had judged her to be much older than I found she was when I had noticed her in the streets of Leghorn. Who could she be, and what could be her motive in stealing my property if she were not in league with the prior himself?My old servant Nello, standing there beside me, knew something more than he would tell. Of that I felt convinced. Possibly he had participated in the plot, admitting her, well knowing her errand. He had warned me; therefore he must know something. What was the object of it all I utterly failed to conceive.“That woman is a thief?” I exclaimed angrily a few moments later. “Who is she?”“I—I do not know her,signor padrone,” stammered the old man.“She gave no name?”“None. She said that you expected her.”“But she could not have taken away a big book like that without your noticing it?” I pointed out suspiciously.“She had on a big black cloak, signore,” was the crafty old fellow’s response.I closed my writing-table and locked it, for in that moment I had decided to go straight to Florence and charge Bernardo Landini with being a party to the theft. Having sold the book to me, he wished to repossess himself of it, and on my refusal, had, it seemed, put in motion a kind of conspiracy against me.The old hunchback was undoubtedly the director of it all.I thrust a few things into a kit-bag, placed some money in my pocket, and put on an overcoat; and telling Nello that I should not return for a couple of days, perhaps, gave orders that no one was to be admitted to the house except my most intimate friend, Hutchinson, the British consul.At the big, bare railway station, wherein the feeble gas-jet had just been lit, I saw, lounging beside the ticket-collector, the detective attached to that post, whose duty it was to notice all arrivals and departures; and, knowing him, I called him aside and briefly described the lady who had visited me.“Yes, signore, I saw her. She left for Pisa an hour ago; she purchased a first-class ticket for London.”“For London!” I gasped. “Had she any baggage?”“A crocodile-leather dressing-case and a small flat box covered with brown leather.”“By what route was she travelling?”The detective walked to the booking-office, and in response to his inquiries I learned that she had taken a direct ticket by way of Turin, Modane, Paris, and Calais. The train which caught at Pisa the express to the French frontier had left an hour ago; therefore I had no chance of overtaking her.Still, something prompted me to take the next train to Pisa, for Italian railways are never punctual, and there was just a chance that she might have missed her connection. So half an hour later I sat in the dimly lit, rickety old compartment of that branch-line train, pondering over the events of the past day, and determined to run down the thief at all hazards.At Pisa I quickly learned that the Leghorn train had arrived in time to catch the express; therefore the woman in black was now well on her way towards the frontier.I purchased a railway-guide, and entering the waiting-room, sat down to study it calmly. After half an hour I decided upon a plan. The homeward Indian mail from Brindisi to London would pass through Turin at 9:10 on the following morning, and, if I caught it, would land me at Calais three hours in advance of the express by which she was travelling. But from Pisa to Turin is a far cry—half-way across Italy; and I at once consulted the station-master as to the possibility of arriving in time.There was none, he declared. The express for the north, which left in two hours’ time, could not arrive in Turin before 9:20, ten minutes after the departure of the Indian mail. Therefore it was impossible.I paced the long, deserted platform full of chagrin and utterly bewildered.Of a sudden, however, a thought occurred to me. I knew the manager of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits at Turin station, a most courteous and hard-working Englishman named Nicholls. I would telegraph to him, urging him in the strongest terms to detain the Indian mail for me ten minutes.This I did, and just before midnight stepped into the Rome-Turin express on the first stage of my stern-chase across Europe.Through the hot, stifling July night I stretched myself out along the cushions and slept but little during the slow, tedious journey through those eighty-odd roaring tunnels that separate Pisa from Genoa, for the line is compelled to run so close to the sea in places that the waves lap the very ballast. I was excited, wondering whether I should succeed in catching the mail and arresting the woman’s progress.In those past few days I had trodden a maze of mystery. My love for the antique had brought into my life one of the strangest episodes experienced by any man, yet in those breathless moments, as I tore across Europe, I thought only of regaining possession of my remarkable treasure, and of obtaining the forbidden knowledge contained therein.Hour after hour dragged slowly by. At Genoa, long after the sun had risen, I got out for a cup of coffee in that ugly and rather dirty buffet which travellers in Italy know so well. Then re-entering, we started off up the deep valleys and across the broad wine-lands of Asti towards Turin.As we approached the capital of Piedmont my anxiety increased. To delay the Indian mail for ten minutes was surely a sufficient courtesy, and I knew that after that lapse of time my friend Nicholls dared not assume further responsibility. The overland mail once a week between Brindisi and Charing Cross is ever on time; a contract that must be kept whatever the cost; hence, as I frequently glanced at my watch, I grew anxious as to my success in catching it.If I did I should arrive at Calais harbour in advance of the mysterious woman, and could on board the steamer single her out and demand the restoration of my property.We halted at Novi, and the time lost in taking water seemed an eternity. At Alexandria we were ten minutes late—ten minutes! Think what that meant to me.At Asti there was some difficulty about an oldcontadina’sbox; and when the train started at last for Turin we were nearly fourteen minutes behind time. I threw myself back with a sigh, feeling that all hope had vanished. We could never make up time on that short run; and the English mail, after waiting for me, would leave ten minutes or so before my arrival. Could any situation be more tantalising?At last, however, we ran slowly into the great arched terminus of Turin; and as we did so I hung half my body from the carriage window, and was delighted to see the train of long, brown sleeping-cars still standing in the station.My heart gave a bound. On the platform my friend Nicholls was awaiting me, and assisted me hurriedly to descend.“Just in time, Mr Kennedy,” he said. “Another minute and I should have been compelled to let her go. Anything serious in London?”“Yes,” I answered. “Very serious. I’ll write to you all about it. But I don’t know how to thank you sufficiently.”“Oh, never mind about that,” he laughed. “I’ve got your berth for you. Come along;” and, hurrying me over to the next platform, he put me into one of the cars, wishing mebon voyage, waved his hand, and we moved out towards Calais—the fastest express across Europe.Upon the result of that hard race my whole future and happiness depended. I was not, of course, aware of it at the time. I was merely consumed by curiosity regarding the strange vellum record, and was eager to obtain the knowledge that its writer had so successfully concealed—barring it with certain death to those who sought the truth.Could I but have looked into the future, could I have realised what it all meant to me, I should never have dared to embark upon that chase; but rather should I have been pleased that this unknown woman of the sable habiliments had taken into her hands that which must sooner or later encompass her death.But we are creatures of impulse, all of us. I found the circumstances full of romance and interest; and, beyond, I saw the woman herself as great a mystery as that written upon those envenomed pages.My keen anxiety through those long hours while we sped through the Alps and by way of Aix, Mâcon, and Dijon to Paris need not be told. The train by which the woman I was following had travelled was before us all the way; but her delay would, I discovered, be in Paris; for while she was compelled to cross the city by cab, and wait at the Gare du Nord five hours, we travelled around the Ceinture railway, and left for Calais with only twenty minutes’ wait at the French capital.Most of my fellow-travellers were Anglo-Indians, officers and their wives home on leave, together with a few homeward-bound travellers from the Far East, everyone eager to get aboard the Dover boat and to sight the white cliffs of Old England once again after perhaps many years of exile. If you have travelled by the overland mail, you know well the excitement that commences as one nears Calais; for once beneath the British flag of the Channel steamer, one is home again. Ah! that word home—how much it conveyed to me!—how much to you, if you have travelled in far-off lands!We swung through Boulogne around that terrible curve that generally throws over the plates and dishes of thewagon restaurant, and at last slackened down through Calais-Ville, and slowly proceeded to the harbour where the special boat awaited us, the train having done the long run from Brindisi four minutes under the scheduled time even though Nicholls had kept it behind for nearly a quarter of an hour.It was now eleven o’clock in the morning, and until four o’clock in the afternoon I remained in that most dismal of all hotels, the “Terminus,” at Calais, awaiting the arrival of the ordinary express from Paris. It came at last, crowded with summer tourists from Switzerland and elsewhere, business men, and that quaint, mixed set of travellers that continually pass to and fro across the Channel.In order to discover the woman, however, I took up a position near the gangway that gave access to the steamer, and scrutinised each passenger with all the eagerness of a born detective. One after the other they passed in array, each carrying the hand-luggage, while the big, rattling cranes were at work faking aboard baggage and mails.The stream grew thinner, until the last passenger had passed on board, and yet she did not come. My haste had been in vain. She had probably broken her journey in Paris. And yet somehow I felt that she had some motive in carrying The Closed Book to London without delay.French porters with their arm-badges and peaked caps rushed to and fro. There was shouting in two languages, not counting the third—or bad language. They were preparing to cast off, and I was undecided whether to remain in Calais until two o’clock next morning for the arrival of the night train or to go aboard and make further search.But just as the gangway was about to be withdrawn I distinguished among the bustling groups of passengers a face that was familiar to me, and my decision was made immediately. I rushed headlong on board, and my hopes revived as I made my way quickly across the deck.

The Closed Book had been filched from me at the very moment when I was about to learn the secret it contained.

I put a few well-directed questions to Nello, and became confirmed in my suspicion that the woman who had stolen it was actually the same whose face had so attracted me that it had lived within my memory every moment since our first meeting.

Curious how the faces of some women haunt us, even when we have no desire for their affection! The fascination of a woman’s eyes is one of the unaccountable mysteries of life, being far beyond human ken or human control, and yet one of the most potent factors in man’s existence.

In the half-open drawer of my writing-table were certain private papers that I had taken from my despatch-box two days before, intending to send them to my solicitors in London, and these the unknown in black had apparently been examining. She had called with a fixed purpose, which she had accomplished—namely, to pry into my private affairs, and to gain possession of my treasured Arnoldus, the Book of Secrets.

As I knew Tuscany and the Tuscans so well, this ingenious conspiracy was scarcely surprising. The little plots, often harmless enough, that I had detected about me during my residence by the Mediterranean had shown me what a cleverly diplomatic race they were, and with what patient secretiveness they work towards their own ends. It annoyed me, however, to think that I should thus fall a victim to that handsome woman’s ingenuity. Veiled as she had been in Father Bernardo’s study, I had judged her to be much older than I found she was when I had noticed her in the streets of Leghorn. Who could she be, and what could be her motive in stealing my property if she were not in league with the prior himself?

My old servant Nello, standing there beside me, knew something more than he would tell. Of that I felt convinced. Possibly he had participated in the plot, admitting her, well knowing her errand. He had warned me; therefore he must know something. What was the object of it all I utterly failed to conceive.

“That woman is a thief?” I exclaimed angrily a few moments later. “Who is she?”

“I—I do not know her,signor padrone,” stammered the old man.

“She gave no name?”

“None. She said that you expected her.”

“But she could not have taken away a big book like that without your noticing it?” I pointed out suspiciously.

“She had on a big black cloak, signore,” was the crafty old fellow’s response.

I closed my writing-table and locked it, for in that moment I had decided to go straight to Florence and charge Bernardo Landini with being a party to the theft. Having sold the book to me, he wished to repossess himself of it, and on my refusal, had, it seemed, put in motion a kind of conspiracy against me.

The old hunchback was undoubtedly the director of it all.

I thrust a few things into a kit-bag, placed some money in my pocket, and put on an overcoat; and telling Nello that I should not return for a couple of days, perhaps, gave orders that no one was to be admitted to the house except my most intimate friend, Hutchinson, the British consul.

At the big, bare railway station, wherein the feeble gas-jet had just been lit, I saw, lounging beside the ticket-collector, the detective attached to that post, whose duty it was to notice all arrivals and departures; and, knowing him, I called him aside and briefly described the lady who had visited me.

“Yes, signore, I saw her. She left for Pisa an hour ago; she purchased a first-class ticket for London.”

“For London!” I gasped. “Had she any baggage?”

“A crocodile-leather dressing-case and a small flat box covered with brown leather.”

“By what route was she travelling?”

The detective walked to the booking-office, and in response to his inquiries I learned that she had taken a direct ticket by way of Turin, Modane, Paris, and Calais. The train which caught at Pisa the express to the French frontier had left an hour ago; therefore I had no chance of overtaking her.

Still, something prompted me to take the next train to Pisa, for Italian railways are never punctual, and there was just a chance that she might have missed her connection. So half an hour later I sat in the dimly lit, rickety old compartment of that branch-line train, pondering over the events of the past day, and determined to run down the thief at all hazards.

At Pisa I quickly learned that the Leghorn train had arrived in time to catch the express; therefore the woman in black was now well on her way towards the frontier.

I purchased a railway-guide, and entering the waiting-room, sat down to study it calmly. After half an hour I decided upon a plan. The homeward Indian mail from Brindisi to London would pass through Turin at 9:10 on the following morning, and, if I caught it, would land me at Calais three hours in advance of the express by which she was travelling. But from Pisa to Turin is a far cry—half-way across Italy; and I at once consulted the station-master as to the possibility of arriving in time.

There was none, he declared. The express for the north, which left in two hours’ time, could not arrive in Turin before 9:20, ten minutes after the departure of the Indian mail. Therefore it was impossible.

I paced the long, deserted platform full of chagrin and utterly bewildered.

Of a sudden, however, a thought occurred to me. I knew the manager of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits at Turin station, a most courteous and hard-working Englishman named Nicholls. I would telegraph to him, urging him in the strongest terms to detain the Indian mail for me ten minutes.

This I did, and just before midnight stepped into the Rome-Turin express on the first stage of my stern-chase across Europe.

Through the hot, stifling July night I stretched myself out along the cushions and slept but little during the slow, tedious journey through those eighty-odd roaring tunnels that separate Pisa from Genoa, for the line is compelled to run so close to the sea in places that the waves lap the very ballast. I was excited, wondering whether I should succeed in catching the mail and arresting the woman’s progress.

In those past few days I had trodden a maze of mystery. My love for the antique had brought into my life one of the strangest episodes experienced by any man, yet in those breathless moments, as I tore across Europe, I thought only of regaining possession of my remarkable treasure, and of obtaining the forbidden knowledge contained therein.

Hour after hour dragged slowly by. At Genoa, long after the sun had risen, I got out for a cup of coffee in that ugly and rather dirty buffet which travellers in Italy know so well. Then re-entering, we started off up the deep valleys and across the broad wine-lands of Asti towards Turin.

As we approached the capital of Piedmont my anxiety increased. To delay the Indian mail for ten minutes was surely a sufficient courtesy, and I knew that after that lapse of time my friend Nicholls dared not assume further responsibility. The overland mail once a week between Brindisi and Charing Cross is ever on time; a contract that must be kept whatever the cost; hence, as I frequently glanced at my watch, I grew anxious as to my success in catching it.

If I did I should arrive at Calais harbour in advance of the mysterious woman, and could on board the steamer single her out and demand the restoration of my property.

We halted at Novi, and the time lost in taking water seemed an eternity. At Alexandria we were ten minutes late—ten minutes! Think what that meant to me.

At Asti there was some difficulty about an oldcontadina’sbox; and when the train started at last for Turin we were nearly fourteen minutes behind time. I threw myself back with a sigh, feeling that all hope had vanished. We could never make up time on that short run; and the English mail, after waiting for me, would leave ten minutes or so before my arrival. Could any situation be more tantalising?

At last, however, we ran slowly into the great arched terminus of Turin; and as we did so I hung half my body from the carriage window, and was delighted to see the train of long, brown sleeping-cars still standing in the station.

My heart gave a bound. On the platform my friend Nicholls was awaiting me, and assisted me hurriedly to descend.

“Just in time, Mr Kennedy,” he said. “Another minute and I should have been compelled to let her go. Anything serious in London?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Very serious. I’ll write to you all about it. But I don’t know how to thank you sufficiently.”

“Oh, never mind about that,” he laughed. “I’ve got your berth for you. Come along;” and, hurrying me over to the next platform, he put me into one of the cars, wishing mebon voyage, waved his hand, and we moved out towards Calais—the fastest express across Europe.

Upon the result of that hard race my whole future and happiness depended. I was not, of course, aware of it at the time. I was merely consumed by curiosity regarding the strange vellum record, and was eager to obtain the knowledge that its writer had so successfully concealed—barring it with certain death to those who sought the truth.

Could I but have looked into the future, could I have realised what it all meant to me, I should never have dared to embark upon that chase; but rather should I have been pleased that this unknown woman of the sable habiliments had taken into her hands that which must sooner or later encompass her death.

But we are creatures of impulse, all of us. I found the circumstances full of romance and interest; and, beyond, I saw the woman herself as great a mystery as that written upon those envenomed pages.

My keen anxiety through those long hours while we sped through the Alps and by way of Aix, Mâcon, and Dijon to Paris need not be told. The train by which the woman I was following had travelled was before us all the way; but her delay would, I discovered, be in Paris; for while she was compelled to cross the city by cab, and wait at the Gare du Nord five hours, we travelled around the Ceinture railway, and left for Calais with only twenty minutes’ wait at the French capital.

Most of my fellow-travellers were Anglo-Indians, officers and their wives home on leave, together with a few homeward-bound travellers from the Far East, everyone eager to get aboard the Dover boat and to sight the white cliffs of Old England once again after perhaps many years of exile. If you have travelled by the overland mail, you know well the excitement that commences as one nears Calais; for once beneath the British flag of the Channel steamer, one is home again. Ah! that word home—how much it conveyed to me!—how much to you, if you have travelled in far-off lands!

We swung through Boulogne around that terrible curve that generally throws over the plates and dishes of thewagon restaurant, and at last slackened down through Calais-Ville, and slowly proceeded to the harbour where the special boat awaited us, the train having done the long run from Brindisi four minutes under the scheduled time even though Nicholls had kept it behind for nearly a quarter of an hour.

It was now eleven o’clock in the morning, and until four o’clock in the afternoon I remained in that most dismal of all hotels, the “Terminus,” at Calais, awaiting the arrival of the ordinary express from Paris. It came at last, crowded with summer tourists from Switzerland and elsewhere, business men, and that quaint, mixed set of travellers that continually pass to and fro across the Channel.

In order to discover the woman, however, I took up a position near the gangway that gave access to the steamer, and scrutinised each passenger with all the eagerness of a born detective. One after the other they passed in array, each carrying the hand-luggage, while the big, rattling cranes were at work faking aboard baggage and mails.

The stream grew thinner, until the last passenger had passed on board, and yet she did not come. My haste had been in vain. She had probably broken her journey in Paris. And yet somehow I felt that she had some motive in carrying The Closed Book to London without delay.

French porters with their arm-badges and peaked caps rushed to and fro. There was shouting in two languages, not counting the third—or bad language. They were preparing to cast off, and I was undecided whether to remain in Calais until two o’clock next morning for the arrival of the night train or to go aboard and make further search.

But just as the gangway was about to be withdrawn I distinguished among the bustling groups of passengers a face that was familiar to me, and my decision was made immediately. I rushed headlong on board, and my hopes revived as I made my way quickly across the deck.

Chapter Eleven.The Old Lady from Paris.The man with whom I shook hands heartily was about thirty-five, tall, spruce, clean-shaven, and merry-faced, wearing a black overcoat and peaked cap that gave him the appearance of a naval officer. Cross-channel passengers know Henry Hammond well, for he is one of the most popular officials in his Majesty’s customs, always courteous, always lenient to the poor foreign immigrant, but always stern wherever the traveller seeks to conceal contraband goods or that thing forbidden, the pet dog; conscientious in his duty in examining the baggage of incoming passengers, and always a gentleman—different, indeed, from the pryingdouaniersof our neighbours.With his assistant it was his duty, turn by turn, to cross from Dover by the midday service, and on the return of the steamer from Calais—the vessel on which we were now aboard—to examine all the light baggage and affix a kind of perforated stamp as certificate of examination.As a constant traveller I had had many a pleasant chat with him during trips across. In the wildest winter tempest in Dover Straits he remained unruffled, merely turning up the collar of his overcoat, and remarking that the weather was not so bad as it might be. But nearly all of you have had your baggage examined on the boat on your return from the Continent; therefore, no doubt, you know Mr Hammond, and have answered his question whether you have “anything to declare.”“Why, Mr Kennedy,” he cried, as he took my hand, “this is a surprise! I saw in the paper the other day an announcement that you were returning to live in England, but did not expect you across just yet. Look at them,” he added, casting his glance around. “Big crowd this afternoon: Cook’s and Gaze’s weekly returns from Switzerland.”“Yes,” I laughed. “You’ll be busy all the way over, I suppose.”“No, I’ll be done in three-quarters of an hour or so; then we’ll have a chat. My assistant is already getting on with hand-baggage forward.” By this time we had cast off, and were creeping slowly down the harbour.“Well, Hammond,” I said confidentially, “I’m in a dilemma;” and taking him aside into one of the unoccupied deck-cabins I briefly explained the circumstances of The Closed Book, and described its outward appearance and binding.“By Jove!” he exclaimed, deeply interested; “it almost beats your own romances, Mr Kennedy. I’ve just been reading your last. Neither my wife nor I could put it down till we’d finished.”“You see, the woman ought to be on board this boat; but I’ve not yet seen her. I’m just going in search of her. But if you should come across any one answering the description I’ve given, you might tell me at once.”“Of course. You want to get this extraordinary book back again?”“Certainly. It is a valuable piece of property, apart from the secret it contains and the mystery surrounding it;” and as I uttered those words the slow roll of the vessel showed that we were already out in the somewhat choppy sea, and warned my friend that it was time to commence his duty.So we parted, and I started a tour around the boat, commencing tactfully at the stern, and passing in review each of the passengers. The work was by no means easy, for women when they lounge in deck-chairs assume thick wrappings and thick veils to protect their faces when the Channel is rough and the wind strong. One always feels the breeze cold after hours in a stuffy sleeping-car, and, therefore, women are prone to suffer the horrors of the ladies’ cabin rather than risk catching cold.For nearly an hour I made frantic search hither and thither throughout the whole ship, in all three classes. I gazed at the piles of heavy baggage, wondering whether my treasure were concealed there, registered through to London perhaps, in which case it might go forward without my mysterious visitor. The only place forbidden to me was, of course, the ladies’ cabin, presided over by a stern stewardess; and if the woman of whom I was in pursuit was on board, she had undoubtedly concealed herself there.She certainly had not embarked by the gangway I had watched; but there was a second gangway to the fore-part of the ship by which baggage was carried, and she might have slipped across there unnoticed, as people sometimes do.Already Shakespeare’s Cliff was showing through the evening haze, as the vessel steadily laboured in the rough sea. The passengers were mostly lying in deck-chairshors de combat, and no one ventured to promenade upon the unsteady deck. I had taken up a sheltered position near the door of the ladies’ cabin, determined to remain there until every passenger should have left, although I was compelled to admit that my hope was a forlorn one, and that I should have to return again to Calais by the night boat and resume my vigil on the other side.The woman must have broken her journey in Paris, and would undoubtedly come later; but on what day or by what service she would cross I was, of course, in ignorance. And as I sat shivering upon a stool in the rough wind, with the salt spray dashing ever and anon into my face, I felt that the probabilities of regaining my treasure were very few.I had been the victim of an ingenious conspiracy. More could not be said.Of a sudden, however, Hammond—his coat-collar up, and walking unsteadily because of the heavy rolling of the boat—approached me, saying:“Well, I’ve just finished, Mr Kennedy. Every passenger today seems to have a double amount of hand-baggage; but we’ve been through it all. I’ve seen nothing of the young lady you describe; but I’ve seen something else—I’ve found your book.”“Found it!” I cried excitedly. “Who has it? Tell me.”“Well, a few minutes ago, in the second-class, I was examining the contents of a dilapidated leather bag belonging to a little, wizen-faced old woman, very shabbily dressed, when I found down at the bottom a flat brown-paper parcel, wrapped carefully, tied with string and sealed with big blotches of black wax. I’m always suspicious of sealed packets, for they may contain anything from cigars to anarchists’ bombs; therefore I ordered her to break the seals and open it. At first she refused; but on my explaining the penalty incurred, she reluctantly obeyed, and there, to my great satisfaction, I saw your old manuscript. I looked inside, and although I know little about such things, I recognised it from your description to be the stolen volume.”“Did you make any remark?”“None,” was Mr Hammond’s reply. “I wished to consult you first. I did not put the usual label on the bag, so that when she passes ashore it will be stopped and again opened. What do you intend doing?”I was puzzled. It was satisfactory to know where The Closed Book actually was, but, on the other hand, it would be difficult to regain possession of it. As my friend Hammond pointed out, I could give notice to the harbour detective on arriving at Dover, and he would detain the woman. But I should be compelled to charge her with theft. This I could not do. I could, of course, declare the book to be stolen property; but matters were the more complicated because of the theft having been committed in Italy.For some time we discussed the situation; then I accompanied him through the second-class, where, on a chair in the gangway leading past the engines, sat a queer, dried-up looking little woman of about sixty-five, wearing a rusty black bonnet and cloak—a woman I had noticed during my tour of inspection, but whom I had never suspected of being in actual possession of my treasure.The book had evidently been delivered to her in Paris, and she was taking it to London—to whom?That question I put to myself decided me, and when I was out of hearing I told Hammond that I intended to follow her before claiming it, and thus ascertain, if possible, the motive of the strange international plot which was apparently in progress.The short, wizened old lady was English: her face thin and yellow, with a pair of dark eyes that had probably once been beautiful, and hair still dark, though showing threads of grey. She wore black cloth gloves, worn out at the finger-tips, and was ponderous below the waist on account of thick skirts put on to protect herself from the cold sea-breeze.Hammond declared that her speech was that of a well-born person, and that her frayed glove concealed a diamond ring—a circumstance which he viewed with considerable suspicion. Yet he entirely agreed with me that I should gain more by following her to her destination and watching carefully than by arresting her on landing. There was a deep, inexplicable mystery about the book and its contents; and in order to solve it I ought to be acquainted with those whom it interested.“I can’t understand the manner in which you were poisoned by touching the leaves,” Hammond said reflectively. “That beats me altogether. Perhaps somebody else will have a taste of it before long.”“I shall watch,” I replied determinedly.“In any case it is a most interesting circumstance,” he declared. “But it’s a good job your Italian doctor was able to save you. Evidently you had a very narrow shave.”“Very,” I said. “I shall never forget the agonies I suffered. But,” I added, “I mean at all hazards to decipher all that the book contains. That something very extraordinary is written there I’m absolutely convinced.”“Well, it would really seem so,” he agreed. “Only, don’t run any risks and touch the thing with your bare hands again.”“Not likely,” I laughed. And then I fell to wondering what had become of that dark-eyed, beautiful woman who had been the actual thief.Why was the treasure wrapped and sealed so carefully? Could it be that those who had so cleverly conspired to obtain it from me were aware of the venom with which certain parts of it were contaminated? It really seemed as though they were.We passed and repassed the short-statured old lady, talking together and appearing to take no notice of her. Evidently she was not aware of my identity; therefore I stood much greater chance in my efforts to watch her.The examination of her bag that Hammond had made had not disturbed her in the least; but presently he returned to her, and, feigning to have forgotten to affix the necessary customs stamp, did so.At last we slowed up beside the Admiralty Pier at Dover, and next instant all was bustle. Passengers hitherto prostrated by the voyage sprang up and pressed towards the gangway, each eager to get ashore and secure a place in the draughty and out-of-date compartments of the Joint-Railways.With an old woman’s dislike of crowds, the person we were watching slowly gathered together her belongings, folded her shabby old travelling-rug neatly, pulled her veil beneath her chin, shook out her skirts, and then, carrying her precious bag, made her way to the gangway after the first rush had passed.Hammond’s quick eye detected her to be an experienced traveller, who had crossed many times before. She sat quite unruffled and unconcerned amid all the excitement of landing.On the pier she inquired for the train for Charing Cross, and entered a second-class compartment, where she purchased a cup of tea and a slab of that greasy bread-and-butter which seems to be all the Joint-Railways allow the jaded traveller on landing, while I took a place in the next compartment to hers, and then retired some distance away in order to consult further with Hammond.To his astuteness and thoroughness as a searcher I owed the knowledge of where my treasure was concealed; therefore I thanked him most warmly, and just as the signal was given for departure stepped into the carriage and waved him farewell.The run to London was without incident, but on arriving at Charing Cross I kept keen observation upon her. She clung tenaciously to the bag containing the book, refusing to let a porter handle it, and entered a four-wheeled cab. I followed to the corner of Holborn and Southampton Row, where she alighted and walked quickly across Red Lion Square until she reached a big, dingy house in Harpur Street,—a short, quiet turning off of Theobald’s Road,—a house that in the old days when Bloomsbury was a fashionable quarter had no doubt been the residence of some City merchant or man of standing. The old extinguisher used by the linkmen still hung beside the big hall door, the steps leading up to it were worn hollow by the tread of generations, and under the flickering gaslight the place, with its unlighted windows, looked dark, forbidding, and deserted.The old lady was apparently expected, for the instant she passed the lower windows the door was flung open by some unseen person, showing the big hall to be in total darkness; and she, having ascended the steps with surprising alacrity, slipped in, the door falling to quickly and quite noiselessly behind her.

The man with whom I shook hands heartily was about thirty-five, tall, spruce, clean-shaven, and merry-faced, wearing a black overcoat and peaked cap that gave him the appearance of a naval officer. Cross-channel passengers know Henry Hammond well, for he is one of the most popular officials in his Majesty’s customs, always courteous, always lenient to the poor foreign immigrant, but always stern wherever the traveller seeks to conceal contraband goods or that thing forbidden, the pet dog; conscientious in his duty in examining the baggage of incoming passengers, and always a gentleman—different, indeed, from the pryingdouaniersof our neighbours.

With his assistant it was his duty, turn by turn, to cross from Dover by the midday service, and on the return of the steamer from Calais—the vessel on which we were now aboard—to examine all the light baggage and affix a kind of perforated stamp as certificate of examination.

As a constant traveller I had had many a pleasant chat with him during trips across. In the wildest winter tempest in Dover Straits he remained unruffled, merely turning up the collar of his overcoat, and remarking that the weather was not so bad as it might be. But nearly all of you have had your baggage examined on the boat on your return from the Continent; therefore, no doubt, you know Mr Hammond, and have answered his question whether you have “anything to declare.”

“Why, Mr Kennedy,” he cried, as he took my hand, “this is a surprise! I saw in the paper the other day an announcement that you were returning to live in England, but did not expect you across just yet. Look at them,” he added, casting his glance around. “Big crowd this afternoon: Cook’s and Gaze’s weekly returns from Switzerland.”

“Yes,” I laughed. “You’ll be busy all the way over, I suppose.”

“No, I’ll be done in three-quarters of an hour or so; then we’ll have a chat. My assistant is already getting on with hand-baggage forward.” By this time we had cast off, and were creeping slowly down the harbour.

“Well, Hammond,” I said confidentially, “I’m in a dilemma;” and taking him aside into one of the unoccupied deck-cabins I briefly explained the circumstances of The Closed Book, and described its outward appearance and binding.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, deeply interested; “it almost beats your own romances, Mr Kennedy. I’ve just been reading your last. Neither my wife nor I could put it down till we’d finished.”

“You see, the woman ought to be on board this boat; but I’ve not yet seen her. I’m just going in search of her. But if you should come across any one answering the description I’ve given, you might tell me at once.”

“Of course. You want to get this extraordinary book back again?”

“Certainly. It is a valuable piece of property, apart from the secret it contains and the mystery surrounding it;” and as I uttered those words the slow roll of the vessel showed that we were already out in the somewhat choppy sea, and warned my friend that it was time to commence his duty.

So we parted, and I started a tour around the boat, commencing tactfully at the stern, and passing in review each of the passengers. The work was by no means easy, for women when they lounge in deck-chairs assume thick wrappings and thick veils to protect their faces when the Channel is rough and the wind strong. One always feels the breeze cold after hours in a stuffy sleeping-car, and, therefore, women are prone to suffer the horrors of the ladies’ cabin rather than risk catching cold.

For nearly an hour I made frantic search hither and thither throughout the whole ship, in all three classes. I gazed at the piles of heavy baggage, wondering whether my treasure were concealed there, registered through to London perhaps, in which case it might go forward without my mysterious visitor. The only place forbidden to me was, of course, the ladies’ cabin, presided over by a stern stewardess; and if the woman of whom I was in pursuit was on board, she had undoubtedly concealed herself there.

She certainly had not embarked by the gangway I had watched; but there was a second gangway to the fore-part of the ship by which baggage was carried, and she might have slipped across there unnoticed, as people sometimes do.

Already Shakespeare’s Cliff was showing through the evening haze, as the vessel steadily laboured in the rough sea. The passengers were mostly lying in deck-chairshors de combat, and no one ventured to promenade upon the unsteady deck. I had taken up a sheltered position near the door of the ladies’ cabin, determined to remain there until every passenger should have left, although I was compelled to admit that my hope was a forlorn one, and that I should have to return again to Calais by the night boat and resume my vigil on the other side.

The woman must have broken her journey in Paris, and would undoubtedly come later; but on what day or by what service she would cross I was, of course, in ignorance. And as I sat shivering upon a stool in the rough wind, with the salt spray dashing ever and anon into my face, I felt that the probabilities of regaining my treasure were very few.

I had been the victim of an ingenious conspiracy. More could not be said.

Of a sudden, however, Hammond—his coat-collar up, and walking unsteadily because of the heavy rolling of the boat—approached me, saying:

“Well, I’ve just finished, Mr Kennedy. Every passenger today seems to have a double amount of hand-baggage; but we’ve been through it all. I’ve seen nothing of the young lady you describe; but I’ve seen something else—I’ve found your book.”

“Found it!” I cried excitedly. “Who has it? Tell me.”

“Well, a few minutes ago, in the second-class, I was examining the contents of a dilapidated leather bag belonging to a little, wizen-faced old woman, very shabbily dressed, when I found down at the bottom a flat brown-paper parcel, wrapped carefully, tied with string and sealed with big blotches of black wax. I’m always suspicious of sealed packets, for they may contain anything from cigars to anarchists’ bombs; therefore I ordered her to break the seals and open it. At first she refused; but on my explaining the penalty incurred, she reluctantly obeyed, and there, to my great satisfaction, I saw your old manuscript. I looked inside, and although I know little about such things, I recognised it from your description to be the stolen volume.”

“Did you make any remark?”

“None,” was Mr Hammond’s reply. “I wished to consult you first. I did not put the usual label on the bag, so that when she passes ashore it will be stopped and again opened. What do you intend doing?”

I was puzzled. It was satisfactory to know where The Closed Book actually was, but, on the other hand, it would be difficult to regain possession of it. As my friend Hammond pointed out, I could give notice to the harbour detective on arriving at Dover, and he would detain the woman. But I should be compelled to charge her with theft. This I could not do. I could, of course, declare the book to be stolen property; but matters were the more complicated because of the theft having been committed in Italy.

For some time we discussed the situation; then I accompanied him through the second-class, where, on a chair in the gangway leading past the engines, sat a queer, dried-up looking little woman of about sixty-five, wearing a rusty black bonnet and cloak—a woman I had noticed during my tour of inspection, but whom I had never suspected of being in actual possession of my treasure.

The book had evidently been delivered to her in Paris, and she was taking it to London—to whom?

That question I put to myself decided me, and when I was out of hearing I told Hammond that I intended to follow her before claiming it, and thus ascertain, if possible, the motive of the strange international plot which was apparently in progress.

The short, wizened old lady was English: her face thin and yellow, with a pair of dark eyes that had probably once been beautiful, and hair still dark, though showing threads of grey. She wore black cloth gloves, worn out at the finger-tips, and was ponderous below the waist on account of thick skirts put on to protect herself from the cold sea-breeze.

Hammond declared that her speech was that of a well-born person, and that her frayed glove concealed a diamond ring—a circumstance which he viewed with considerable suspicion. Yet he entirely agreed with me that I should gain more by following her to her destination and watching carefully than by arresting her on landing. There was a deep, inexplicable mystery about the book and its contents; and in order to solve it I ought to be acquainted with those whom it interested.

“I can’t understand the manner in which you were poisoned by touching the leaves,” Hammond said reflectively. “That beats me altogether. Perhaps somebody else will have a taste of it before long.”

“I shall watch,” I replied determinedly.

“In any case it is a most interesting circumstance,” he declared. “But it’s a good job your Italian doctor was able to save you. Evidently you had a very narrow shave.”

“Very,” I said. “I shall never forget the agonies I suffered. But,” I added, “I mean at all hazards to decipher all that the book contains. That something very extraordinary is written there I’m absolutely convinced.”

“Well, it would really seem so,” he agreed. “Only, don’t run any risks and touch the thing with your bare hands again.”

“Not likely,” I laughed. And then I fell to wondering what had become of that dark-eyed, beautiful woman who had been the actual thief.

Why was the treasure wrapped and sealed so carefully? Could it be that those who had so cleverly conspired to obtain it from me were aware of the venom with which certain parts of it were contaminated? It really seemed as though they were.

We passed and repassed the short-statured old lady, talking together and appearing to take no notice of her. Evidently she was not aware of my identity; therefore I stood much greater chance in my efforts to watch her.

The examination of her bag that Hammond had made had not disturbed her in the least; but presently he returned to her, and, feigning to have forgotten to affix the necessary customs stamp, did so.

At last we slowed up beside the Admiralty Pier at Dover, and next instant all was bustle. Passengers hitherto prostrated by the voyage sprang up and pressed towards the gangway, each eager to get ashore and secure a place in the draughty and out-of-date compartments of the Joint-Railways.

With an old woman’s dislike of crowds, the person we were watching slowly gathered together her belongings, folded her shabby old travelling-rug neatly, pulled her veil beneath her chin, shook out her skirts, and then, carrying her precious bag, made her way to the gangway after the first rush had passed.

Hammond’s quick eye detected her to be an experienced traveller, who had crossed many times before. She sat quite unruffled and unconcerned amid all the excitement of landing.

On the pier she inquired for the train for Charing Cross, and entered a second-class compartment, where she purchased a cup of tea and a slab of that greasy bread-and-butter which seems to be all the Joint-Railways allow the jaded traveller on landing, while I took a place in the next compartment to hers, and then retired some distance away in order to consult further with Hammond.

To his astuteness and thoroughness as a searcher I owed the knowledge of where my treasure was concealed; therefore I thanked him most warmly, and just as the signal was given for departure stepped into the carriage and waved him farewell.

The run to London was without incident, but on arriving at Charing Cross I kept keen observation upon her. She clung tenaciously to the bag containing the book, refusing to let a porter handle it, and entered a four-wheeled cab. I followed to the corner of Holborn and Southampton Row, where she alighted and walked quickly across Red Lion Square until she reached a big, dingy house in Harpur Street,—a short, quiet turning off of Theobald’s Road,—a house that in the old days when Bloomsbury was a fashionable quarter had no doubt been the residence of some City merchant or man of standing. The old extinguisher used by the linkmen still hung beside the big hall door, the steps leading up to it were worn hollow by the tread of generations, and under the flickering gaslight the place, with its unlighted windows, looked dark, forbidding, and deserted.

The old lady was apparently expected, for the instant she passed the lower windows the door was flung open by some unseen person, showing the big hall to be in total darkness; and she, having ascended the steps with surprising alacrity, slipped in, the door falling to quickly and quite noiselessly behind her.

Chapter Twelve.The Sign of the Bear Cub.The exterior of the house was by no means inviting.The old lady had entered there in secret, without a doubt; otherwise she would have driven up to the door instead of alighting at the corner of Southampton Row.I passed by on the opposite side, and as there was a street-lamp quite near was enabled to examine it fairly well, even though darkness had now set in.All the blinds were drawn, and the inside shutters of the basement were closely barred. There was no light in any part, nor any sign of life within. In fact, the state of the windows and door-steps would lead to a conclusion that the old place was tenantless, for the exterior possessed a distinct air of neglect. Other houses in the row were of stereotyped exactness, but all more or less smarter, with steps hearthstoned and lights showing in the windows here and there. The one into which the old woman had so quickly disappeared was, however, grim, silent, forbidding.As I strolled to the corner of Theobald’s Road I wondered what next I should do. I wanted to secure possession of the book, but without litigation, and, if possible, in secret. Yet it was a very difficult matter, as Hammond had pointed out.Rain commenced to fall, and after my long journey from the Mediterranean I felt cold and deadbeat. Therefore, my eyes catching sight of a glaring public-house nearly opposite, I crossed and obtained some brandy and the loan of theLondon Directory.After some little search I therein found the name of the occupier of the dingy old place, as follows: “106, Gardiner, Margaret.”London’s mysteries are many and inscrutable. Surely here was a strange and inexplicable one. Why, indeed, should a mere old book of no value save to a collector be stolen from me in the far-off South and spirited away at express speed across the Continent to that dark, grimy, unlit place? There was some deep, direct motive in it all, of course; but what it was I could not conceive—except that the suspicion was strong upon me that, written within The Closed Book, was some remarkable and highly profitable secret, as indeed the writer himself alleged.Again I strolled up Harpur Street past the silent house, keenly examining its every detail.I noticed, to my surprise, that during my brief absence the Venetian blind of one of the first-floor windows had been drawn up half-way, and that on a table quite close to it stood a small stuffed animal—a tiny bear cub I made it out to be. There was a feeble light within, as though the big room was lighted only by a single candle, and it none of the brightest.At the end of the street I crossed and returned past the house, walking on the opposite side of the way and re-examining the windows.Yes, it was evidently a candle burning there, and as I passed I saw a long shadow fall directly across the window, then suddenly disappear.Could it be that the animal had been placed there as a signal to someone who would pass outside?Somehow I became convinced that this was so. The blind had been raised just sufficiently to show the small bear cub mounted on its hind-legs and holding a card tray. I recollected having seen one very similar on the table of the Savage Club—a present from one of the members.My natural cautiousness prompted me to wait and watch for the coming of the person for whom the silent signal was intended—if signal it were; therefore, I lit a cigarette and halted at the dark corner of East Street, the short turning at the end of the thoroughfare wherein the silent house was situated.As I was dressed only in a thin suit of blue serge, which one generally wears in summer in Italy when not in white ducks, the steadily falling rain soon soaked me through. My straw hat hung clammily on my head, and the water dripped down my neck, rendering me most uncomfortable. There was every prospect of a soaking night—different, indeed, from that clear, rainless sky that I had just left. Ah! how dismal London seemed to me at that hour, jaded, wet, and worn-out as I was! Still, with that dogged determination which some of my enemies have said is my chief characteristic, I remained there watching for the coming of the unknown, who must be privy to the plot.Time after time as I stood back in the shelter of a doorway, compelled ever and anon to go forth into the rain and keep my vigil, I wondered whether the conclusion I had formed was actually the right one.The feeble light flickered in the dark room, but showed not the interior, because of the smoky lace-curtains, dingy and yellow. Yet there stood the stuffed bear cub clearly silhouetted, almost startlingly—the only object visible upon that dark, forbidding façade.More than once I heard footsteps coming from Theobald’s Road, and rushed from my hiding-place to encounter the passer-by. But each time I was disappointed. The postman came on his last delivery, but only stopped at the big offices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, almost opposite the house I was watching, then swung round the corner to Lamb’s Conduit Street.A policeman passed with heavy tread, flashing his bull’s eye carelessly down the areas and glancing at me inquiringly; then in the roadway through the slush came a man and a woman, Italians, dragging a street-organ wearily homeward to Saffron Hill. I watched them and wondered from what part of Italy they came.As they went by I heard the man, a strong, black-browed fellow of twenty-seven or so, exclaim, “Accidenti!” and knew that he was a Tuscan. The woman (old, brown-faced, and wrinkled) only sighed and dragged harder.They went forward, turned the corner into Theobald’s Road, and a few moments later the strident strains of “Soldiers of the Queen” rang out amid the bustle of the thoroughfare and the roar of traffic. They had evidently stopped before the public-house where I had borrowed theDirectory, in the hope of earning a last copper or two before relinquishing their day’s work.Attracted by the music, I strolled back towards the spot where they had halted, and as I did so encountered two persons. One was a tall, grey-haired, rather sad-looking old gentleman, dressed somewhat shabbily, wearing an old ulster, but without umbrella; the other was an extremely pretty, fair-haired girl of perhaps twenty-two, pale-faced, and evidently agitated, for she clung to his arm and was whispering something to him as she walked. She was apparently imploring him to hear her; but he went on stolidly, heedless of her words. Her dress was plain, and, it seemed to me, betrayed the pinch of poverty. Like her companion, she had no umbrella, and her plain sailor-hat and black jacket were sodden with the rain.Her face, however, struck me as one of the most perfect I had ever seen in all my life. That woman whom I had met in the prior’s study in Florence was certainly handsome; but hers was of an entirely different type of beauty, a face about which there certainly could be no two opinions, but a face full of tragic force and energy.This woman, however, bore a sweet expression, rendered the more interesting by that earnest, imploring look as I passed her by unnoticed. Her companion was, it struck me, a broken-down gentleman, while she herself possessed an air of refinement in face and figure, in spite of her shabby attire, that caused me to set her down as no ordinary girl.Her extreme beauty made me turn after them.The old man, with his thin, hard face, yet gentle eyes, was still obdurate. She held back, but without a word he closed her arm to his and pulled her forward. He seemed to walk mechanically, while she appeared bent on arresting his farther progress.Suddenly, as I strolled on behind them, they came in full view of the window and its mysterious signal.“Ah!” I overheard the old fellow cry in a tone of satisfaction. “See! As I hoped. At last—at last!”“It means death—death!” the girl added in a tone more hoarse and despairing than ever I have before heard in a woman.I had been close enough to overhear the words that confirmed my suspicion, and I must confess they held me dumbfounded. I had expected to meet some slinking thief or some hulking receiver of stolen property, who would come to look for the bear cub in the window. Certainly I had, on first encountering the pair, never for a moment believed that the signal had been placed there for them.The man raised his head again, as though to make certain that his eyes had not deceived him, and as he did so I caught a glance of the girl’s white countenance in the wind-blown light of the street-lamp.Never, to my last day, shall I forget the terrible expression of blank despair in those wonderful eyes. All light and life had died out of her fair face. She looked as though her young heart had, at the sight of that fateful sign, been frozen by some nameless terror.I had seen plays in which a woman’s despair was depicted, but never had I witnessed real despair until that moment. Hideous is the only word that describes it.At the end of the short thoroughfare they turned and walked back past the house, feigning, however, not to notice the lighted window. The instant I had overheard these strange ejaculations I crossed the road and hurried on round the corner out of sight, in order that they should not detect me following them; but, watching their return, I turned again and went after them into Theobald’s Road.On through the rain they trudged in the direction of Oxford Street, wet to the skin, for the down-pour still continued without cessation, and the pavements shone beneath the gaslights. Neither tram-cars nor cabs attracted them, for it seemed more than likely that their extreme poverty did not allow them the luxury of a conveyance.The girl’s hand was held to her breast as she walked, as though to stay the fierce beating of her heart, but her companion strode on steadily with fixed purpose and deep-knit brows.I had been loath to relinquish my vigil before that silent house, fearing that the little old woman who had entered there might emerge again and carry my precious Arnoldus with her. Yet, on the other hand, this strange pair, who had come there in secret and read the signal, deeply interested me, and my curiosity impelled me to follow them.The loud, ear-piercing runs of a street-piano suddenly recalled to my mind the pair of Italians I had noticed ten minutes before; and as we passed them playing before another public-house near Southampton Row I halted for a moment, stepped aside, and spoke to the beetle-browed young Tuscan in his own tongue.“Listen. I want you to assist me,” I exclaimed quickly. “There’s no time to lose, and you’ll get half a sovereign if you do as I direct. Go back alone to Harpur Street—that short turning you came up ten minutes ago—and watch a house with a stuffed bear in the upper window—Number 106. If anyone comes out, follow her—especially a little old woman. Wait there till I rejoin you. Will you do it?”“Certainly, signore,” was the young fellow’s prompt reply. “Number 106, you say? Very well, trust me. My mother, here, can hire somebody to help her home with theorganino.”“Very well. What’s your name?”“Farini Enrico,” he replied, placing the surname first, in Italian style; “born at Ponte Moriano, Provincia di Lucca. The signore knows Tuscany—does he?”“Yes,” I answered. “Wait for me near that house; but don’t let anyone see you are watching. I’ll return as soon as possible. Lose no time.” And I hurried away after the old man in the long ulster and his white-faced companion.They had gained upon me considerably; but I soon overtook them, satisfied that in any case my watch upon the house would not be relinquished. I had lived sufficiently long in Tuscany to be able to read the Tuscan character, and I saw by the young man’s manner that he was not the usualcontadinowho comes to London to grind an organ, but from his speech of quite a superior class. He wore his felt hat slightly askew, and beneath a rather forbidding exterior I detected that he possessed a keen sense of humour. His black, shining eyes laughed merrily when he mentioned his own village—a village I knew quite well, a few miles beyond the quiet, aristocratic old town of Lucca, and I saw that the very fact that I had spoken to him in his own tongue had at once secured him my servant. Italians are such children when you know them thoroughly!I had little time for reflection, however, for the traffic of Oxford Street, although the night was wet, was considerable; and, while having some difficulty in keeping the pair in sight, I was also compelled to exercise a good deal of precaution in order to avoid recognition as the man who had encountered them in Harpur Street.On they went at the same pace, heedless of the drenching rain, turning into Regent Street, then into Maddox Street, and across Grosvenor Square into Grosvenor Street, the centre of the West End. Suddenly, however, to my amazement, they ascended the steps of one of the best houses in the latter street; and the man, taking a latch-key from his pocket, opened the door with an air of proprietorship, and a moment later both disappeared from view, the door closing behind them.Such a house, a veritable mansion in one of the most expensive thoroughfares in London, was the very last place I would have suspected to be their abode.I repassed, and saw that it had been recently repainted, and presented a smart and handsome exterior. Flowers bloomed in the window-boxes, and a striped awning was spread over the portico. I noted that the number was 62A, and the next house I recognised as Viscount Lanercost’s. The manner in which the shabby-genteel pair had slipped into the house showed secrecy, and yet the confident way in which the old man opened the door betrayed that he was no stranger to the place.Again I had recourse to the pages of that book of revelation, theLondon Directory—which I obtained in a bar at the end of Park Lane, frequented mostly by gentlemen’s servants—and there I found that the occupier was the Earl of Glenelg, the wealthy Scotch peer and ex-Under-Secretary, whose name had long been familiar to me, as no doubt it was to my readers, through the columns of the newspapers.Could it be possible that the man in the shabby ulster for whom that mysterious signal had been placed in the window was actually his lordship himself?If so, who was his white-faced companion—the beautiful woman who was terrorised?

The exterior of the house was by no means inviting.

The old lady had entered there in secret, without a doubt; otherwise she would have driven up to the door instead of alighting at the corner of Southampton Row.

I passed by on the opposite side, and as there was a street-lamp quite near was enabled to examine it fairly well, even though darkness had now set in.

All the blinds were drawn, and the inside shutters of the basement were closely barred. There was no light in any part, nor any sign of life within. In fact, the state of the windows and door-steps would lead to a conclusion that the old place was tenantless, for the exterior possessed a distinct air of neglect. Other houses in the row were of stereotyped exactness, but all more or less smarter, with steps hearthstoned and lights showing in the windows here and there. The one into which the old woman had so quickly disappeared was, however, grim, silent, forbidding.

As I strolled to the corner of Theobald’s Road I wondered what next I should do. I wanted to secure possession of the book, but without litigation, and, if possible, in secret. Yet it was a very difficult matter, as Hammond had pointed out.

Rain commenced to fall, and after my long journey from the Mediterranean I felt cold and deadbeat. Therefore, my eyes catching sight of a glaring public-house nearly opposite, I crossed and obtained some brandy and the loan of theLondon Directory.

After some little search I therein found the name of the occupier of the dingy old place, as follows: “106, Gardiner, Margaret.”

London’s mysteries are many and inscrutable. Surely here was a strange and inexplicable one. Why, indeed, should a mere old book of no value save to a collector be stolen from me in the far-off South and spirited away at express speed across the Continent to that dark, grimy, unlit place? There was some deep, direct motive in it all, of course; but what it was I could not conceive—except that the suspicion was strong upon me that, written within The Closed Book, was some remarkable and highly profitable secret, as indeed the writer himself alleged.

Again I strolled up Harpur Street past the silent house, keenly examining its every detail.

I noticed, to my surprise, that during my brief absence the Venetian blind of one of the first-floor windows had been drawn up half-way, and that on a table quite close to it stood a small stuffed animal—a tiny bear cub I made it out to be. There was a feeble light within, as though the big room was lighted only by a single candle, and it none of the brightest.

At the end of the street I crossed and returned past the house, walking on the opposite side of the way and re-examining the windows.

Yes, it was evidently a candle burning there, and as I passed I saw a long shadow fall directly across the window, then suddenly disappear.

Could it be that the animal had been placed there as a signal to someone who would pass outside?

Somehow I became convinced that this was so. The blind had been raised just sufficiently to show the small bear cub mounted on its hind-legs and holding a card tray. I recollected having seen one very similar on the table of the Savage Club—a present from one of the members.

My natural cautiousness prompted me to wait and watch for the coming of the person for whom the silent signal was intended—if signal it were; therefore, I lit a cigarette and halted at the dark corner of East Street, the short turning at the end of the thoroughfare wherein the silent house was situated.

As I was dressed only in a thin suit of blue serge, which one generally wears in summer in Italy when not in white ducks, the steadily falling rain soon soaked me through. My straw hat hung clammily on my head, and the water dripped down my neck, rendering me most uncomfortable. There was every prospect of a soaking night—different, indeed, from that clear, rainless sky that I had just left. Ah! how dismal London seemed to me at that hour, jaded, wet, and worn-out as I was! Still, with that dogged determination which some of my enemies have said is my chief characteristic, I remained there watching for the coming of the unknown, who must be privy to the plot.

Time after time as I stood back in the shelter of a doorway, compelled ever and anon to go forth into the rain and keep my vigil, I wondered whether the conclusion I had formed was actually the right one.

The feeble light flickered in the dark room, but showed not the interior, because of the smoky lace-curtains, dingy and yellow. Yet there stood the stuffed bear cub clearly silhouetted, almost startlingly—the only object visible upon that dark, forbidding façade.

More than once I heard footsteps coming from Theobald’s Road, and rushed from my hiding-place to encounter the passer-by. But each time I was disappointed. The postman came on his last delivery, but only stopped at the big offices of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, almost opposite the house I was watching, then swung round the corner to Lamb’s Conduit Street.

A policeman passed with heavy tread, flashing his bull’s eye carelessly down the areas and glancing at me inquiringly; then in the roadway through the slush came a man and a woman, Italians, dragging a street-organ wearily homeward to Saffron Hill. I watched them and wondered from what part of Italy they came.

As they went by I heard the man, a strong, black-browed fellow of twenty-seven or so, exclaim, “Accidenti!” and knew that he was a Tuscan. The woman (old, brown-faced, and wrinkled) only sighed and dragged harder.

They went forward, turned the corner into Theobald’s Road, and a few moments later the strident strains of “Soldiers of the Queen” rang out amid the bustle of the thoroughfare and the roar of traffic. They had evidently stopped before the public-house where I had borrowed theDirectory, in the hope of earning a last copper or two before relinquishing their day’s work.

Attracted by the music, I strolled back towards the spot where they had halted, and as I did so encountered two persons. One was a tall, grey-haired, rather sad-looking old gentleman, dressed somewhat shabbily, wearing an old ulster, but without umbrella; the other was an extremely pretty, fair-haired girl of perhaps twenty-two, pale-faced, and evidently agitated, for she clung to his arm and was whispering something to him as she walked. She was apparently imploring him to hear her; but he went on stolidly, heedless of her words. Her dress was plain, and, it seemed to me, betrayed the pinch of poverty. Like her companion, she had no umbrella, and her plain sailor-hat and black jacket were sodden with the rain.

Her face, however, struck me as one of the most perfect I had ever seen in all my life. That woman whom I had met in the prior’s study in Florence was certainly handsome; but hers was of an entirely different type of beauty, a face about which there certainly could be no two opinions, but a face full of tragic force and energy.

This woman, however, bore a sweet expression, rendered the more interesting by that earnest, imploring look as I passed her by unnoticed. Her companion was, it struck me, a broken-down gentleman, while she herself possessed an air of refinement in face and figure, in spite of her shabby attire, that caused me to set her down as no ordinary girl.

Her extreme beauty made me turn after them.

The old man, with his thin, hard face, yet gentle eyes, was still obdurate. She held back, but without a word he closed her arm to his and pulled her forward. He seemed to walk mechanically, while she appeared bent on arresting his farther progress.

Suddenly, as I strolled on behind them, they came in full view of the window and its mysterious signal.

“Ah!” I overheard the old fellow cry in a tone of satisfaction. “See! As I hoped. At last—at last!”

“It means death—death!” the girl added in a tone more hoarse and despairing than ever I have before heard in a woman.

I had been close enough to overhear the words that confirmed my suspicion, and I must confess they held me dumbfounded. I had expected to meet some slinking thief or some hulking receiver of stolen property, who would come to look for the bear cub in the window. Certainly I had, on first encountering the pair, never for a moment believed that the signal had been placed there for them.

The man raised his head again, as though to make certain that his eyes had not deceived him, and as he did so I caught a glance of the girl’s white countenance in the wind-blown light of the street-lamp.

Never, to my last day, shall I forget the terrible expression of blank despair in those wonderful eyes. All light and life had died out of her fair face. She looked as though her young heart had, at the sight of that fateful sign, been frozen by some nameless terror.

I had seen plays in which a woman’s despair was depicted, but never had I witnessed real despair until that moment. Hideous is the only word that describes it.

At the end of the short thoroughfare they turned and walked back past the house, feigning, however, not to notice the lighted window. The instant I had overheard these strange ejaculations I crossed the road and hurried on round the corner out of sight, in order that they should not detect me following them; but, watching their return, I turned again and went after them into Theobald’s Road.

On through the rain they trudged in the direction of Oxford Street, wet to the skin, for the down-pour still continued without cessation, and the pavements shone beneath the gaslights. Neither tram-cars nor cabs attracted them, for it seemed more than likely that their extreme poverty did not allow them the luxury of a conveyance.

The girl’s hand was held to her breast as she walked, as though to stay the fierce beating of her heart, but her companion strode on steadily with fixed purpose and deep-knit brows.

I had been loath to relinquish my vigil before that silent house, fearing that the little old woman who had entered there might emerge again and carry my precious Arnoldus with her. Yet, on the other hand, this strange pair, who had come there in secret and read the signal, deeply interested me, and my curiosity impelled me to follow them.

The loud, ear-piercing runs of a street-piano suddenly recalled to my mind the pair of Italians I had noticed ten minutes before; and as we passed them playing before another public-house near Southampton Row I halted for a moment, stepped aside, and spoke to the beetle-browed young Tuscan in his own tongue.

“Listen. I want you to assist me,” I exclaimed quickly. “There’s no time to lose, and you’ll get half a sovereign if you do as I direct. Go back alone to Harpur Street—that short turning you came up ten minutes ago—and watch a house with a stuffed bear in the upper window—Number 106. If anyone comes out, follow her—especially a little old woman. Wait there till I rejoin you. Will you do it?”

“Certainly, signore,” was the young fellow’s prompt reply. “Number 106, you say? Very well, trust me. My mother, here, can hire somebody to help her home with theorganino.”

“Very well. What’s your name?”

“Farini Enrico,” he replied, placing the surname first, in Italian style; “born at Ponte Moriano, Provincia di Lucca. The signore knows Tuscany—does he?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Wait for me near that house; but don’t let anyone see you are watching. I’ll return as soon as possible. Lose no time.” And I hurried away after the old man in the long ulster and his white-faced companion.

They had gained upon me considerably; but I soon overtook them, satisfied that in any case my watch upon the house would not be relinquished. I had lived sufficiently long in Tuscany to be able to read the Tuscan character, and I saw by the young man’s manner that he was not the usualcontadinowho comes to London to grind an organ, but from his speech of quite a superior class. He wore his felt hat slightly askew, and beneath a rather forbidding exterior I detected that he possessed a keen sense of humour. His black, shining eyes laughed merrily when he mentioned his own village—a village I knew quite well, a few miles beyond the quiet, aristocratic old town of Lucca, and I saw that the very fact that I had spoken to him in his own tongue had at once secured him my servant. Italians are such children when you know them thoroughly!

I had little time for reflection, however, for the traffic of Oxford Street, although the night was wet, was considerable; and, while having some difficulty in keeping the pair in sight, I was also compelled to exercise a good deal of precaution in order to avoid recognition as the man who had encountered them in Harpur Street.

On they went at the same pace, heedless of the drenching rain, turning into Regent Street, then into Maddox Street, and across Grosvenor Square into Grosvenor Street, the centre of the West End. Suddenly, however, to my amazement, they ascended the steps of one of the best houses in the latter street; and the man, taking a latch-key from his pocket, opened the door with an air of proprietorship, and a moment later both disappeared from view, the door closing behind them.

Such a house, a veritable mansion in one of the most expensive thoroughfares in London, was the very last place I would have suspected to be their abode.

I repassed, and saw that it had been recently repainted, and presented a smart and handsome exterior. Flowers bloomed in the window-boxes, and a striped awning was spread over the portico. I noted that the number was 62A, and the next house I recognised as Viscount Lanercost’s. The manner in which the shabby-genteel pair had slipped into the house showed secrecy, and yet the confident way in which the old man opened the door betrayed that he was no stranger to the place.

Again I had recourse to the pages of that book of revelation, theLondon Directory—which I obtained in a bar at the end of Park Lane, frequented mostly by gentlemen’s servants—and there I found that the occupier was the Earl of Glenelg, the wealthy Scotch peer and ex-Under-Secretary, whose name had long been familiar to me, as no doubt it was to my readers, through the columns of the newspapers.

Could it be possible that the man in the shabby ulster for whom that mysterious signal had been placed in the window was actually his lordship himself?

If so, who was his white-faced companion—the beautiful woman who was terrorised?

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