Chapter Thirty One.

Chapter Thirty One.The Secret of the Villa Verde.The unexpected sight that met my eyes within that narrow stone passage was truly horrifying.An oil lamp shed a faint light at the farther end of the narrow tunnel-like place, and revealed the body of a man lying in a heap in such a position that I saw, in an instant, that some tragedy had occurred.Creeping forward I bent beside him and touched his hand. It was still warm, yet I saw across the stones a large dark pool—a pool of blood, and at the same moment discovered that it issued from an ugly knife-wound just over the heart.He was a respectably dressed man of forty, robust, heavily built, with dark moustache and shaven chin. As I touched his hand, which lay helpless at his side, my fingers came into contact with something hard, and I found that strapped around his waist he carried a revolver.Quickly I took it out, for I had no weapon myself, and at a glance saw that it was the regulation pattern as supplied to the agents of police.The man who had been stabbed to the heart so unerringly was probably a detective who had been left in charge of the villa after the police had taken possession of the place. Hearing a summons at the door he had perhaps gone to open it, when the ready knife had struck him down, and the desperate trio had passed over his body and entered the villa to prosecute their mysterious object.I listened. There was no sound. The intruders, whatever their object, were in the main building; for it seemed that this narrow passage merely gave entrance to the servants’ quarters. The place was an enormous, rambling one, built, as I afterwards found, by Prince Torlonia in the days of the Borgia Pope, once full of splendour and magnificence, but sadly neglected and degenerated in these modern days.Again I examined the prostrate man, placing my hand upon his heart but failing to detect any movement. He was dead without a doubt.Noiselessly I crept forward, my ears strained to catch every sound, my hand gripping the dead man’s revolver. If I were discovered I could now, at least, make a fight for life. The fearless way in which they had struck down the detective was sufficient to show me that they would hesitate at nothing.Those were exciting moments, for at the end of the narrow stone passage I passed through a door, and found myself in a great dark chamber which seemed to be unfurnished. The faint grey light that struggled in through the barred windows was sufficient to allow me to see that it opened into a great square hall, around which was set a number of ancient high-backed chairs of the same epoch as the house itself. The rooms were lined with ancient tapestries falling to decay, and there was everywhere a damp mouldy smell as though that wing of the place had long been closed and uninhabited.Passing along another corridor, I opened a door at the farther end and found myself at once in the modernised portion of the place, in a corridor where, upon the thick dark red carpet, my feet fell noiselessly, and where a candle which the intruders had probably lit was set upon a table.Again I listened. I fancied I caught the sound of voices, but was not quite certain.For some moments I remained there, holding my breath in hesitation. To search for them in that great place was full of danger and difficulty. And yet, having gone so far, I was determined that I would ascertain their object in coming there.At last, reassuring myself that the voices I had heard were only sounds in my imagination, I went forward again through an open door into a fine long picture-gallery, well carpeted as was the corridor. At the end showed another faint light, for the men had, I now saw, lit a child’s night-light which they had probably brought with them.In that portion of the house there was evidence of wealth and luxury everywhere. Nardini had probably spent a good deal of the public money upon embellishing that fine old place with its wonderful sculptured fireplaces and frescoed and gilt ceilings.Still scarcely daring to breathe lest my presence be detected, I went forward again, until of a sudden voices, plain and unmistakable, broke upon my ear, causing me to halt suddenly and stand motionless as a statue.They were in some room in the vicinity. But where? It was quite dark where I stood, but from a door slightly open at some distance before me shone a thin streak of faint light, evidently from a candle.Dare I approach and peep within?At first I hesitated, for the risk was very great, but at last summoning courage I moved across the thick carpet to the open door and peered in.It was a great salon, I found, a huge, high-roofed place with old gilt furniture upholstered in red silk brocade and some marvellous buhl cabinets full of rare china andbric-à-brac. The place was in darkness, save for the single night-light placed upon a chair—the intruders fearing, of course, to ignite the lamps as the light would shine outside and perhaps attract attention.The great salon led into an inner room, and in there I saw their moving figures by the light of two candles that had been put upon the carpet. They were conversing only in low whispers and seemed to be groping about the floor in the farther corner of the room, as though in search of something.I slipped into the big salon, and creeping from table to chair, bending double so as to be concealed the whole time, I managed to approach near the door of the inner room, and took up a position where I could both observe their movements and overhear their words.Now that I reflect upon my actions of that night, I see how utterly reckless of life I was. A single slip, a cough, a sneeze, and I should be lost. And yet, holding my breath, I knelt behind that big gilt armchair wherein the princes of thecinquecentohad once sat, and watched those men at their mysterious work.The heavy red plush curtains had been drawn across the long windows, and I recognised that the apartment was a library or study, for there were big cases filled with old parchment-covered volumes, and set before one of the windows was a big carved writing-table. As I watched, the doctor lit the gas-lamp upon it, removing the green silk shade so as to give a better light in the room, and as he did so the young man in the grey hat, who had thrown off his coat and was on his hands and knees on the floor, suddenly picked up something which he handed to Miller, saying in Italian with a grin:—“This looks a little suspicious, does it not, signore?” Miller took the object in his hand, and started. Then I saw that it was a narrow gold bangle—a woman’s bracelet. He took it to the light, and read some words inscribed in the inside. Then he stood in silence and wonder.“What’s the matter?” inquired Gavazzi, in broken English. “What is it?”His friend handed it to him without a word.But the doctor only shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and handed back the bangle.At that moment the truth flashed across my mind—the truth unknown to those men. In that room—if that were Nardini’s study—the mysterious discovery had been made. The body of an unknown young Englishwoman had been found there.Was that bangle her property? Miller had certainly recognised the inscription upon it, and knew its owner.I saw that he stood there with knit brows, still glancing at the bracelet, as though mystified.“Come,” urged Gavazzi, in the brisk businesslike way which appeared to be natural to him. “We have no time to lose if we really intend to be successful.” And he went down upon his knees in the farther corner of the room, carefully feeling the surface of the blue velvet-pile carpet with his hands.“We’d better have it up,” he declared at last. “I feel sure it’s somewhere in this corner.”“Then you never actually saw it?” remarked Miller, a trifle disappointed.“No. But it isn’t likely he would ever reveal to me where he kept his most private secrets. We were friends, intimate friends, but Giovanni Nardini was not the man to reveal to even his own father what he considered was a secret. See this!” And rising he walked to the oak-panelled wainscotting, touched a spring, and there was revealed a small secret door leading down to a short flight of steps in the wall somewhere into the cellars below—a secret mode of egress.Again he went to a book-case, part of which proved false, and there on pulling it away revealed a large iron safe let into the wall.“You see I am aware of some of his secrets. The police think they’ve searched the place, but they’ve never discovered either of these, that’s very certain,” he laughed.Then, with the younger man, he proceeded to tear up the carpet, showing that the floor, unlike that in most Italian houses, was boarded and not of mosaic.All three moved the furniture and gradually rolled the carpet back until they had half-uncovered the room. It was heavy, exciting work, and the perspiration rolled from their brows in great beads.Once the chair behind which I was concealed moved a little and the wheel squeaked.Miller’s quick ear caught the sound.“Hark!” he cried, starting up. “What’s that?”“A mouse,” exclaimed the doctor, laughing. “I heard it. Don’t worry yourself, my dear James, we are safe enough now with that guard out of the way.”By the aid of the candles they examined every floorboard, trying each to see if it were movable. But they were all fast, and gave no sign of covering any place of concealment. They seemed to be in search of some cavity where something they believed was concealed.With their knuckles they tapped all over the floor, but the sound emitted was exactly the same everywhere.For a full hour they searched until suddenly the doctor, who had been indefatigable, while running his hand along the floor close to the oak wainscoting quite near the writing-table, made a discovery which instantly brought his companions upon their knees at his side.“Look!” he cried. “See! There is a little piece of a different wood let in here—round like a large wooden stud! I wonder what it is?” He pressed it with his fingers, but to no avail. Therefore he took out his pocket-knife and with the end pressed down hard, throwing all his weight upon his hand. “It gives!” he cried excitedly. “There’s some spring behind it! You are stronger,” he exclaimed, turning to the younger man. “Try. Push down, so!”

The unexpected sight that met my eyes within that narrow stone passage was truly horrifying.

An oil lamp shed a faint light at the farther end of the narrow tunnel-like place, and revealed the body of a man lying in a heap in such a position that I saw, in an instant, that some tragedy had occurred.

Creeping forward I bent beside him and touched his hand. It was still warm, yet I saw across the stones a large dark pool—a pool of blood, and at the same moment discovered that it issued from an ugly knife-wound just over the heart.

He was a respectably dressed man of forty, robust, heavily built, with dark moustache and shaven chin. As I touched his hand, which lay helpless at his side, my fingers came into contact with something hard, and I found that strapped around his waist he carried a revolver.

Quickly I took it out, for I had no weapon myself, and at a glance saw that it was the regulation pattern as supplied to the agents of police.

The man who had been stabbed to the heart so unerringly was probably a detective who had been left in charge of the villa after the police had taken possession of the place. Hearing a summons at the door he had perhaps gone to open it, when the ready knife had struck him down, and the desperate trio had passed over his body and entered the villa to prosecute their mysterious object.

I listened. There was no sound. The intruders, whatever their object, were in the main building; for it seemed that this narrow passage merely gave entrance to the servants’ quarters. The place was an enormous, rambling one, built, as I afterwards found, by Prince Torlonia in the days of the Borgia Pope, once full of splendour and magnificence, but sadly neglected and degenerated in these modern days.

Again I examined the prostrate man, placing my hand upon his heart but failing to detect any movement. He was dead without a doubt.

Noiselessly I crept forward, my ears strained to catch every sound, my hand gripping the dead man’s revolver. If I were discovered I could now, at least, make a fight for life. The fearless way in which they had struck down the detective was sufficient to show me that they would hesitate at nothing.

Those were exciting moments, for at the end of the narrow stone passage I passed through a door, and found myself in a great dark chamber which seemed to be unfurnished. The faint grey light that struggled in through the barred windows was sufficient to allow me to see that it opened into a great square hall, around which was set a number of ancient high-backed chairs of the same epoch as the house itself. The rooms were lined with ancient tapestries falling to decay, and there was everywhere a damp mouldy smell as though that wing of the place had long been closed and uninhabited.

Passing along another corridor, I opened a door at the farther end and found myself at once in the modernised portion of the place, in a corridor where, upon the thick dark red carpet, my feet fell noiselessly, and where a candle which the intruders had probably lit was set upon a table.

Again I listened. I fancied I caught the sound of voices, but was not quite certain.

For some moments I remained there, holding my breath in hesitation. To search for them in that great place was full of danger and difficulty. And yet, having gone so far, I was determined that I would ascertain their object in coming there.

At last, reassuring myself that the voices I had heard were only sounds in my imagination, I went forward again through an open door into a fine long picture-gallery, well carpeted as was the corridor. At the end showed another faint light, for the men had, I now saw, lit a child’s night-light which they had probably brought with them.

In that portion of the house there was evidence of wealth and luxury everywhere. Nardini had probably spent a good deal of the public money upon embellishing that fine old place with its wonderful sculptured fireplaces and frescoed and gilt ceilings.

Still scarcely daring to breathe lest my presence be detected, I went forward again, until of a sudden voices, plain and unmistakable, broke upon my ear, causing me to halt suddenly and stand motionless as a statue.

They were in some room in the vicinity. But where? It was quite dark where I stood, but from a door slightly open at some distance before me shone a thin streak of faint light, evidently from a candle.

Dare I approach and peep within?

At first I hesitated, for the risk was very great, but at last summoning courage I moved across the thick carpet to the open door and peered in.

It was a great salon, I found, a huge, high-roofed place with old gilt furniture upholstered in red silk brocade and some marvellous buhl cabinets full of rare china andbric-à-brac. The place was in darkness, save for the single night-light placed upon a chair—the intruders fearing, of course, to ignite the lamps as the light would shine outside and perhaps attract attention.

The great salon led into an inner room, and in there I saw their moving figures by the light of two candles that had been put upon the carpet. They were conversing only in low whispers and seemed to be groping about the floor in the farther corner of the room, as though in search of something.

I slipped into the big salon, and creeping from table to chair, bending double so as to be concealed the whole time, I managed to approach near the door of the inner room, and took up a position where I could both observe their movements and overhear their words.

Now that I reflect upon my actions of that night, I see how utterly reckless of life I was. A single slip, a cough, a sneeze, and I should be lost. And yet, holding my breath, I knelt behind that big gilt armchair wherein the princes of thecinquecentohad once sat, and watched those men at their mysterious work.

The heavy red plush curtains had been drawn across the long windows, and I recognised that the apartment was a library or study, for there were big cases filled with old parchment-covered volumes, and set before one of the windows was a big carved writing-table. As I watched, the doctor lit the gas-lamp upon it, removing the green silk shade so as to give a better light in the room, and as he did so the young man in the grey hat, who had thrown off his coat and was on his hands and knees on the floor, suddenly picked up something which he handed to Miller, saying in Italian with a grin:—“This looks a little suspicious, does it not, signore?” Miller took the object in his hand, and started. Then I saw that it was a narrow gold bangle—a woman’s bracelet. He took it to the light, and read some words inscribed in the inside. Then he stood in silence and wonder.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Gavazzi, in broken English. “What is it?”

His friend handed it to him without a word.

But the doctor only shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and handed back the bangle.

At that moment the truth flashed across my mind—the truth unknown to those men. In that room—if that were Nardini’s study—the mysterious discovery had been made. The body of an unknown young Englishwoman had been found there.

Was that bangle her property? Miller had certainly recognised the inscription upon it, and knew its owner.

I saw that he stood there with knit brows, still glancing at the bracelet, as though mystified.

“Come,” urged Gavazzi, in the brisk businesslike way which appeared to be natural to him. “We have no time to lose if we really intend to be successful.” And he went down upon his knees in the farther corner of the room, carefully feeling the surface of the blue velvet-pile carpet with his hands.

“We’d better have it up,” he declared at last. “I feel sure it’s somewhere in this corner.”

“Then you never actually saw it?” remarked Miller, a trifle disappointed.

“No. But it isn’t likely he would ever reveal to me where he kept his most private secrets. We were friends, intimate friends, but Giovanni Nardini was not the man to reveal to even his own father what he considered was a secret. See this!” And rising he walked to the oak-panelled wainscotting, touched a spring, and there was revealed a small secret door leading down to a short flight of steps in the wall somewhere into the cellars below—a secret mode of egress.

Again he went to a book-case, part of which proved false, and there on pulling it away revealed a large iron safe let into the wall.

“You see I am aware of some of his secrets. The police think they’ve searched the place, but they’ve never discovered either of these, that’s very certain,” he laughed.

Then, with the younger man, he proceeded to tear up the carpet, showing that the floor, unlike that in most Italian houses, was boarded and not of mosaic.

All three moved the furniture and gradually rolled the carpet back until they had half-uncovered the room. It was heavy, exciting work, and the perspiration rolled from their brows in great beads.

Once the chair behind which I was concealed moved a little and the wheel squeaked.

Miller’s quick ear caught the sound.

“Hark!” he cried, starting up. “What’s that?”

“A mouse,” exclaimed the doctor, laughing. “I heard it. Don’t worry yourself, my dear James, we are safe enough now with that guard out of the way.”

By the aid of the candles they examined every floorboard, trying each to see if it were movable. But they were all fast, and gave no sign of covering any place of concealment. They seemed to be in search of some cavity where something they believed was concealed.

With their knuckles they tapped all over the floor, but the sound emitted was exactly the same everywhere.

For a full hour they searched until suddenly the doctor, who had been indefatigable, while running his hand along the floor close to the oak wainscoting quite near the writing-table, made a discovery which instantly brought his companions upon their knees at his side.

“Look!” he cried. “See! There is a little piece of a different wood let in here—round like a large wooden stud! I wonder what it is?” He pressed it with his fingers, but to no avail. Therefore he took out his pocket-knife and with the end pressed down hard, throwing all his weight upon his hand. “It gives!” he cried excitedly. “There’s some spring behind it! You are stronger,” he exclaimed, turning to the younger man. “Try. Push down, so!”

Chapter Thirty Two.The Ticking of the Clock.The man with the grey hat took the pocket-knife, knelt over the spot, placed the knife in position, and pressed with all his might, when slowly a panel of the oak wainscoting about two feet square fell forward until it lay flat at right angles, disclosing a small locked door behind.“This is it, no doubt!” cried the doctor, tugging at the door. It yielded, disclosing a secret cupboard.A clock set upon a cabinet on the side of the room near where I was hidden was ticking. I had not noticed that sound before, and I thought it strange.Miller held the candle while the others peered within. They all had their backs turned to me, and in my eagerness I bent forward in order to obtain a better view of what was concealed there.“See!” cried Gavazzi. “I was not mistaken! I knew he had some secret hiding-place here. In this room he spent days, sometimes with me, but more often locked in here alone. Fortunately for us, the police know nothing of this.”“Yes,” exclaimed Miller. “Let us see what his treasures are. I wonder what he would say if he saw us handling his secrets,” he added, with a short dry laugh. “The papers to-day say that he’s been seen in Bahia.”Evidently Lucie had for some reason kept her knowledge of the fugitive’s death from her father.“He was always methodical,” remarked the Italian. “And he seems to have carried out his methods here. Look at all these pigeon-holes! Made by himself, it seems, from their roughness. He dared not call in a carpenter. But he was of a very mechanical turn of mind, and probably constructed the whole thing himself.”“It certainly would escape observation,” remarked the young man, examining the thick old panel of polished oak that had fallen back.The doctor had drawn from one of the pigeon-holes a bundle of official-looking papers folded and secured with tape. He glanced at them with critical eye and cast them aside as being without interest. Another, and another, he drew out, but none of them attracted his attention for more than a few moments.“They are merely secret information collected against various politicians and personages—information that he thought might one day be useful,” said Gavazzi.“And profitable, eh?” added Miller, with a laugh.“Quite so. We may find it equally profitable to us one day,” remarked his companion. “They will prove interesting reading when we have time to go through them.”They were evidently in search of something else. Surely they had not deliberately sacrificed a man’s life to obtain those few dusty papers? What, I wondered, was contained in that precious packet which the owner of that villa had given me before his death?Two large matrices of official seals Miller drew out and examined.“Ah! yes!” exclaimed Gavazzi, “I suspected he had those. They are copies of the seal of the Ministry, and with them he fabricated quite a number of official documents. By means of those he sent an order to the convict prison at Volteria to release Rastelli, the forger, who was a friend of his. The Governor at once set him at liberty, and does not know to this day that the order was a forgery. Indeed, I believe that, for a consideration, he used to give out these orders.”“And he made them himself!” Miller laughed. “A pretty profitable business!” And he turned over the brass seals in his hand, while the little clock ticked on.“Of course. If he had only been satisfied and not attempted too much, he would have remained years in office without any suspicion falling upon him. I, however, knew something of what was in progress, and yet he defied me and absolutely refused to let me share. Well—you know the rest,” he laughed. “I didn’t see why he should take all the profits and I do the work.”“But you managed to be pretty well paid,” his friend remarked.“I merely looked after myself. Yet, if Giovanni had not been a fool and taken me into the affair when he knew that I’d discovered everything, we might have run the Ministry as a joint concern until—well, until the next Cabinet crisis or King Umberto dismissed us. It’s a pity—a thousand pities—he was such a fool. But you see he got unnerved, he was afraid of his enemies, and so he acknowledged his peculations by bolting.”“A fatal mistake,” Miller declared. “I wonder he didn’t get across to Greece. The police couldn’t have touched him there. He knew the law of extradition quite as well as you or I. To go to South America is simply running into the arms of the police.”“I question whether he is in America,” the doctor said, examining deliberately the contents of another of the pigeon-holes. “The report may have been circulated by the police themselves—as reports so often are—to put the fugitive off his guard. No, I should think that he is more likely in Paris, or Vienna, or Berlin. He could reach either capital by the through train from Rome. He probably put on a suit of workman’s clothes and travelled third-class with a stick and a bundle. That’s the safest way to get out of the country—don’t you think so? We’ve both done it more than once,” he laughed.There was something distinctly humorous to me in the owner of the Manor at Studland travelling as an Italian labourer among the unwashed third-class passengers and passing the guards at the frontier with his worldly belongings tied up in a dirty handkerchief.And yet that is a course very often adopted by the international thief as the safest way in which to pass from one country to another.“Gran Dio!” ejaculated Gavazzi a moment later, as he held a small packet open in his hand. “Money! Look!”Both men bent eagerly, and I saw that the doctor held in his hand a thick packet of yellow bank-notes secured by an elastic band—thousand-franc notes they were, and there could not be less than fifty of them.“What good fortune!” cried Miller. “It was worth doing after all.”“I told you it was. This was his secret bank. Probably there’s more inside.”In an instant the three men tore out the contents of the pigeon-holes and scattered them upon the floor in their eagerness to secure what the dead man had hidden there.“Here’s another lot!” exclaimed the young man, holding up a second packet, while a few minutes later Miller himself discovered two fat packets, each note for one thousand francs. A fourth packet was discovered containing English twenty-pound notes and some German paper money.Those were exciting moments. The men scrambled and snatched the packets from each other, tearing them open in their fierce eagerness to ascertain whether they contained notes. In the eyes of all three was that terrible lust for gold that impels men to great crimes, that fierce passion that renders men unconscious of their actions.Time after time smaller packets were discovered, which they thrust into their pockets uncounted.There was wealth there—wealth that would place all three of them beyond the necessity of those subterfuges by which they had previously lived—an ill-gotten hoard of bank-notes which I calculated to be of the value of many thousands of English pounds sterling.And I was witness of their unexpected good fortune, for which the poor unfortunate man in charge had been foully done to death.Miller suddenly discovered a large packet of thousand-franc notes in the back of the cupboard and pocketed them—a packet double the size of the first—whereupon a fierce quarrel instantly ensued.Both the doctor and the young man declared that the money should be properly divided, while Miller flatly refused.Hot words arose—quick accusations and recriminations, the men raising their voices all unconsciously, when of a sudden something entirely unexpected occurred.The men were silent in an instant—silent in awe.The clock, hitherto unnoticed by them, had stopped ticking.

The man with the grey hat took the pocket-knife, knelt over the spot, placed the knife in position, and pressed with all his might, when slowly a panel of the oak wainscoting about two feet square fell forward until it lay flat at right angles, disclosing a small locked door behind.

“This is it, no doubt!” cried the doctor, tugging at the door. It yielded, disclosing a secret cupboard.

A clock set upon a cabinet on the side of the room near where I was hidden was ticking. I had not noticed that sound before, and I thought it strange.

Miller held the candle while the others peered within. They all had their backs turned to me, and in my eagerness I bent forward in order to obtain a better view of what was concealed there.

“See!” cried Gavazzi. “I was not mistaken! I knew he had some secret hiding-place here. In this room he spent days, sometimes with me, but more often locked in here alone. Fortunately for us, the police know nothing of this.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Miller. “Let us see what his treasures are. I wonder what he would say if he saw us handling his secrets,” he added, with a short dry laugh. “The papers to-day say that he’s been seen in Bahia.”

Evidently Lucie had for some reason kept her knowledge of the fugitive’s death from her father.

“He was always methodical,” remarked the Italian. “And he seems to have carried out his methods here. Look at all these pigeon-holes! Made by himself, it seems, from their roughness. He dared not call in a carpenter. But he was of a very mechanical turn of mind, and probably constructed the whole thing himself.”

“It certainly would escape observation,” remarked the young man, examining the thick old panel of polished oak that had fallen back.

The doctor had drawn from one of the pigeon-holes a bundle of official-looking papers folded and secured with tape. He glanced at them with critical eye and cast them aside as being without interest. Another, and another, he drew out, but none of them attracted his attention for more than a few moments.

“They are merely secret information collected against various politicians and personages—information that he thought might one day be useful,” said Gavazzi.

“And profitable, eh?” added Miller, with a laugh.

“Quite so. We may find it equally profitable to us one day,” remarked his companion. “They will prove interesting reading when we have time to go through them.”

They were evidently in search of something else. Surely they had not deliberately sacrificed a man’s life to obtain those few dusty papers? What, I wondered, was contained in that precious packet which the owner of that villa had given me before his death?

Two large matrices of official seals Miller drew out and examined.

“Ah! yes!” exclaimed Gavazzi, “I suspected he had those. They are copies of the seal of the Ministry, and with them he fabricated quite a number of official documents. By means of those he sent an order to the convict prison at Volteria to release Rastelli, the forger, who was a friend of his. The Governor at once set him at liberty, and does not know to this day that the order was a forgery. Indeed, I believe that, for a consideration, he used to give out these orders.”

“And he made them himself!” Miller laughed. “A pretty profitable business!” And he turned over the brass seals in his hand, while the little clock ticked on.

“Of course. If he had only been satisfied and not attempted too much, he would have remained years in office without any suspicion falling upon him. I, however, knew something of what was in progress, and yet he defied me and absolutely refused to let me share. Well—you know the rest,” he laughed. “I didn’t see why he should take all the profits and I do the work.”

“But you managed to be pretty well paid,” his friend remarked.

“I merely looked after myself. Yet, if Giovanni had not been a fool and taken me into the affair when he knew that I’d discovered everything, we might have run the Ministry as a joint concern until—well, until the next Cabinet crisis or King Umberto dismissed us. It’s a pity—a thousand pities—he was such a fool. But you see he got unnerved, he was afraid of his enemies, and so he acknowledged his peculations by bolting.”

“A fatal mistake,” Miller declared. “I wonder he didn’t get across to Greece. The police couldn’t have touched him there. He knew the law of extradition quite as well as you or I. To go to South America is simply running into the arms of the police.”

“I question whether he is in America,” the doctor said, examining deliberately the contents of another of the pigeon-holes. “The report may have been circulated by the police themselves—as reports so often are—to put the fugitive off his guard. No, I should think that he is more likely in Paris, or Vienna, or Berlin. He could reach either capital by the through train from Rome. He probably put on a suit of workman’s clothes and travelled third-class with a stick and a bundle. That’s the safest way to get out of the country—don’t you think so? We’ve both done it more than once,” he laughed.

There was something distinctly humorous to me in the owner of the Manor at Studland travelling as an Italian labourer among the unwashed third-class passengers and passing the guards at the frontier with his worldly belongings tied up in a dirty handkerchief.

And yet that is a course very often adopted by the international thief as the safest way in which to pass from one country to another.

“Gran Dio!” ejaculated Gavazzi a moment later, as he held a small packet open in his hand. “Money! Look!”

Both men bent eagerly, and I saw that the doctor held in his hand a thick packet of yellow bank-notes secured by an elastic band—thousand-franc notes they were, and there could not be less than fifty of them.

“What good fortune!” cried Miller. “It was worth doing after all.”

“I told you it was. This was his secret bank. Probably there’s more inside.”

In an instant the three men tore out the contents of the pigeon-holes and scattered them upon the floor in their eagerness to secure what the dead man had hidden there.

“Here’s another lot!” exclaimed the young man, holding up a second packet, while a few minutes later Miller himself discovered two fat packets, each note for one thousand francs. A fourth packet was discovered containing English twenty-pound notes and some German paper money.

Those were exciting moments. The men scrambled and snatched the packets from each other, tearing them open in their fierce eagerness to ascertain whether they contained notes. In the eyes of all three was that terrible lust for gold that impels men to great crimes, that fierce passion that renders men unconscious of their actions.

Time after time smaller packets were discovered, which they thrust into their pockets uncounted.

There was wealth there—wealth that would place all three of them beyond the necessity of those subterfuges by which they had previously lived—an ill-gotten hoard of bank-notes which I calculated to be of the value of many thousands of English pounds sterling.

And I was witness of their unexpected good fortune, for which the poor unfortunate man in charge had been foully done to death.

Miller suddenly discovered a large packet of thousand-franc notes in the back of the cupboard and pocketed them—a packet double the size of the first—whereupon a fierce quarrel instantly ensued.

Both the doctor and the young man declared that the money should be properly divided, while Miller flatly refused.

Hot words arose—quick accusations and recriminations, the men raising their voices all unconsciously, when of a sudden something entirely unexpected occurred.

The men were silent in an instant—silent in awe.

The clock, hitherto unnoticed by them, had stopped ticking.

Chapter Thirty Three.Certain Persons are Inquisitive.The half-open door through which I had been watching the men’s mysterious movements, and the discovery of the fugitive’s hidden wealth, suddenly closed of its own accord, with the heavy clang of iron.Besides startling me, it left me in semi-darkness in the great salon.I heard them rush frantically towards it, trying to open it, but their efforts were unavailing. Loud imprecations escaped them, for they believed that some person had imprisoned them. If they succeeded in escaping they would certainly discover me, therefore my position was one of extreme peril.But I recollected the strange ticking of that clock which had commenced when the secret cupboard had been opened. The ticking had now ceased, therefore the door had closed automatically upon the intruders. By some clever contrivance Nardini had connected his secret hiding-place with the door that had been strengthened and lined with steel, enamelled white to match the wood-work of the salon. By a clockwork arrangement the door would evidently close upon the inquisitive person who opened the cupboard at a certain time afterwards.When the little clock standing upon the pearl-inlaid cabinet had suddenly broken the silence by ticking it had attracted my attention, but I quickly forgot it in watching the trio so narrowly. The study window was evidently strongly barred, as were all the windows of the ground floor of the villa, the bars being built into the wall outside the house in such a manner that they could only be filed through, an operation which would take considerable time even with proper tools.They hammered upon the door and threw their weight upon it, but it did not budge. Evidently by the same mechanical contrivance several strong steel bolts had been shot into their sockets.The trio at the very moment of their sudden acquisition of Nardini’s dishonestly obtained wealth had been entrapped.“We’re discovered!” I heard Miller cry in English.“Whoever has found us has locked us in!”It never occurred to them that the cupboard and the door were connected, or that Nardini had invented such an ingenious contrivance in order to entrap any thief who might discover his secret.“We must get out of this as quickly as possible!” Gavazzi exclaimed breathlessly. “Let’s make the division of the money afterwards.”“The window!” suggested the younger man, but a rapid examination proved it to be too strongly barred.I heard them within the room consulting with each other as to what could be done, and was amused at their chagrin, having discovered the dead man’s hoard only to be so unexpectedly imprisoned with the wealth upon them.The two Italians showered fierce imprecations upon whoever had bolted them in, and vowed that the police should never take them alive. They knew, too well, the serious charge they would have to face, for they knew that the body of the detective left in charge would be discovered behind the side door.A heavy piece of furniture was brought to play upon the study door, but the sound made as they battered with it revealed to them that they were endeavouring to break down iron.“Hush!” cried Miller suddenly. “We mustn’t make a noise like that. There are probablycontadiniliving in the vicinity, and it will awaken them.”“Bah!” responded the doctor. “They’ll only believe that it’s a ghost. Here thecontadiniare most superstitious.”“But thecarabinieriare not,” remarked the young accomplice apprehensively. “My own idea is that we’ve been followed. I noticed a man in a dark suit looking very hard at us when we left the train.”“What kind of man?” the doctor inquired quickly.“Looked like an Inglese signore, rather tall, about thirty, and wore a dark suit.”“Why in the name of Fate didn’t you mention it to us at the time?” cried Miller. “An Inglese! Who could he possibly be? Have you ever seen him before?”“Never.”“Then he may have followed us here and alarmed thecarabinieri!” gasped the doctor. “We must escape—before they arrest us!”I saw that the young thief had noticed me when I had followed them out into the darkness from the station at Tivoli. He would therefore recognise me if we met again.They would, no doubt, make a desperate attempt at escape. Yet should I raise the alarm and call the police? Was it policy on my part to do so? If Lucie’s father were arrested, Lucie herself must surely be implicated, and perhaps through Gordon-Wright my own dear love might also find herself in the criminal’s dock.The mystery had grown so complicated and so inexplicable that I feared to take any step towards the denunciation of the thieves.My only policy was to wait and to watch.I recollected Ella’s appeal to me to remain silent concerning the scoundrel under whose banal thrall she had so mysteriously fallen, and I feared that if I made my statement it might lead to the fellow’s arrest.What, I wondered, was the true explication of the mystery of the unknown girl being found in that room wherein the three thieves were entrapped? Who was she? What did Lucie know concerning her?A great fear possessed me that the police, in searching, would discover Lucie in Leghorn, though in Italy the detectives always find more difficulty in tracing foreigners than the Italians themselves. Every Italian, when he moves his habitation even from one street to the other, is compelled to give notice to the police. But not so the large foreign floating population who are for ever moving over the face of what is essentially a tourists’ country.Another great crash upon the door awakened me to a sense of my peril, should these men succeed in escaping. With as little compunction as they had struck down the guard, they would, I knew, strike me down, and even though I had a revolver they were three to one. Besides, a pistol is no use against a knife in the hands of such an expert as the young thief in the grey hat whom they had so swiftly taken into their confidence.With regret that they had seized that large amount in money, and yet in the hope that they might regain their liberty and remain for some time longer—at least until I had learned the truth concerning my well-beloved—I crept softly back along the great salon, feeling my way before me with my hands. So thick was the carpet that my feet fell noiselessly, and my escape was rendered all the more easy by the noise the men were making by trying to batter down the door.Swiftly I retraced my steps along the corridors, through the picture-gallery and the older wing of the great house, until I came to the long dim stone corridor. I shuddered as I passed into it, for there lay still undiscovered, and in the same position in which the assassins had left it, the body of the unfortunate police agent who had been left in charge of the fugitive’s property which had been seized by the Government. On tiptoe I approached it, and bending, replaced the revolver.Then with a final glance at the evidence of a horrible deed—a deed committed for the lust of gold—I crept out into the early morning air which blew fresh and cool from over the mountains, causing the leaves of the vines to rustle while a loose sun-shutter creaked mournfully as it swung to and fro overhead.Retracing my steps through the vineyard I gained the high-road, when the fancy took me to ascend to the back of the villa and listen if I could hear the imprisoned intruders.Hardly had I reached the top of the hill when the truth was revealed to me, as I expected. Their voices could be distinctly heard, for one of those strongly barred windows that looked out upon the roadway was that of the room wherein the absconding ex-Minister had concealed the money he had filched from the public purse.I halted in the darkness beneath the window, trying to catch the drift of the conversation, and even while I stood there one of them pulled aside the heavy curtains and allowed a stream of light to fall across the roadway. It was surely an injudicious action, yet they could not examine the bars without so doing.Standing back in the shadow I saw them open the window and feel the strength of that thick prison-like grating, the defence in those turbulent days when the place had been a miniature fortress.“Without a file, it’s impossible to break them,” declared Gavazzi, in a tone of deep disappointment. “But we must get out somehow. Every moment’s delay places us in graver peril. What shall we do?”I saw that their position was utterly hopeless. They had been caught like rats in a trap. Therefore I crept along under the old stone wall of the villa and made my way down the hill in the direction of where the electric street lamps of the town of Tivoli were shining.It was, I saw by my watch, already half-past two.After walking near half a mile, at a bend in the road two carabineers in uniform, with their guns slung upon their shoulders, emerged suddenly upon me and called me to halt.Imagine my confusion. I held my breath, and perhaps it was fortunate for me that the darkness hid the pallor of my face.“Who are you?” demanded one of the rural guards in Italian, with a strong northern accent. He was Piedmontese, I think.“I am an Englishman,” I answered, quite frankly, but making a strenuous effort to remain calm.“So I hear by your speech,” the man replied gruffly. “And what are you doing here? The English don’t usually walk about here at this hour?”“I’ve walked from Palestrina, and lost myself in the darkness. Is that Tivoli down yonder?”“Yes it is. But what’s your name?” he inquired, as though my quick reply had aroused his suspicions. I regretted my words next instant. I intended to mislead the man, but he evidently did not believe me. I saw that if I was not now perfectly frank I might be arrested on suspicion and detained in the carabineer barracks until morning.I recognised into what deadly peril my intrepidity had now led me. If they detained me the discovery of the tragedy and robbery at the Villa Verde would certainly be made, and I should find myself implicated with those three assassins. The circumstantial evidence against me would be very strong, and it might be many months before I regained my freedom. In such circumstances I should, alas! lose my Ella for ever!“My name is Godfrey Leaf, native of London,” was my reply.“And what brings you here? You certainly haven’t walked from Palestrina. You’d be more dusty than you are.”“Of course he would,” remarked the man’s companion, shifting his carbine to his other shoulder. “He’s lying.”“Well,” I said, feigning to be insulted by the fellow’s inquiries, “why should I tell you my business? It is no affair of yours, surely. Do you think I’m an assassin, or on my way to rob somecontadiniof his poultry?”“We can never tell a man by his dress. Besides, how are we to know who you are—that you are really the person you say?”I was silent. His question was an awkward one. But suddenly I recollected.“Well, perhaps this will convince you that I’m a respectable person, eh?” And taking from my pocket-book my Italian revolver licence I handed it to him. He opened it suspiciously, then said; “Come farther down with us, to that light, and let’s have a good look at you.”Now an Italian licence to carry a revolver is a very different document from that in England. It is issued only in very rare cases by the police themselves to responsible persons who first have to show that they are in danger of their lives fromvendettaor some other cause, and that to carry a weapon is for them personal defence. Upon the licence is the minute police description of the person to whom it is issued, as well as his signature, while the document is also countersigned by the Prefect of the city whence it is issued. It is therefore the best of all identification papers.Obeying the guards, I walked with them down to the light at the town gateway where they read the official permit, closely scrutinising me as they reached each individual description, colour of hair and eyes, shape of nose, forehead and head, and the dozen other small details, all of which they found tallied with the licence.“Born in London and domiciled in Milan, I see,” remarked the carabineer.“I was living in Milan when I applied to the Public Security Department for the permit.”“Well,” he said, “it’s lucky for you you had it upon you, otherwise you might have spent a day or two in prison for the untruth you told us.” And he handed back the licence to me with a grim smile. “Perhaps you’ll tell me now where you really have been?”I saw it necessary to alter my tactics, therefore I answered with a laugh:—“To tell the truth I came out from Rome last night to keep an appointment—a secret one—with a lady—if you really must know.”“Then you’d better go back again to Rome,” was his answer, apparently well satisfied, and believing that story more probable. “There’s a train in twenty minutes or so, and we’ll see you into it. We are on our way to the station.”From that moment we grew friendly, for the carabineers are a splendid body of picked men, and are always polite to the foreigner.“You were coming down from the villa yonder,” explained the man who had interrogated me half apologetically. “Therefore we had to ascertain who you were.”“What villa do you mean?”“The Onorovele Nardini’s. He’s absconded, as I daresay you’ve heard.”“Ah?” I said, “I did read in the English journals something about it. And did he live up there?”“Yes. At the big villa. You must have passed it. He used to live here a great deal, and every one believed him to be an honest man.”“Wasn’t he?”“Diono! He got a million francs of the public money, and no one knows what has become of it.” Was either of these men the son of the old concierge in the Via del Tritone, I wondered? I longed to ask them, but dare not. They, of course, told me nothing regarding the mysterious discovery of a woman’s body in the ex-Minister’s study. Perhaps, indeed, they, like all others outside the confidential branch of the police service, were ignorant of it.“And doesn’t any one know where he is?” I asked, as we strolled at length upon the dark platform of the railway station.“Oh! He’sin esterosomewhere. We shall never get him, you may be sure. When once a man like that gets over the frontier he’s gone for ever.”What, I wondered, would these two men think when, on the morrow, the truth of what had occurred at the Villa Verde became revealed! The body of the detective would be found, and another mystery would succeed the one which was being so carefully suppressed.Both men accepted cigarettes from my case as we idled up and down the platform awaiting the train for Rome. It was their duty to meet all the night trains and note all arrivals and departures, therefore we passed an idle half-hour gossiping pleasantly until the train drew up, and entering a first-class compartment I bade them farewell and breathed freely again as we moved off towards the “Eternal City.”The instant the train was clear of the station I saw my imminent peril. By ill-fortune these guards had met me, they had read my name, seen my description, and knew me well. As soon as the discovery was made in the Villa Verde—indeed, at any moment—they would telegraph those details all over the country and eagerly seek to arrest me as an accomplice. Whether Miller and his friends were arrested or not, they would naturally connect me with the affair. That was but natural.Fortunately I had succeeded in impressing upon them that I was a respectable person, but I recognised that if I desired to retain my liberty—my liberty to free my love from that mysterious bond which held her to a scoundrel—I must escape from Italy both immediately and secretly.Before arrival in Rome I took off the gold pince-nez I habitually wore, discarded my collar and cravat, tied my handkerchief around my neck in attempt at disguise, and so passed the barrier. Afterwards I walked some distance, and then took a cab to the hotel.At eight o’clock, with a ticket for Florence by way of Pisa, I was in the express for the frontier at Modane. I purposely took a ticket for Florence, and then from Pisa, at two o’clock in the afternoon, I took another ticket to Turin. If my departure had been noted, they would search for me in Florence.That journey was, perhaps, one of the most exciting in all my life. I travelled third-class, attired in an old suit, old boots, and a handkerchief tied about my neck. In Turin I had four hours to wait, as the express to Paris did not convey third-class passengers, and those four hours passed slowly, for being a constant traveller I was known by sight by the waiters in the buffet and many officials. Therefore I was compelled to avoid them. Besides, was I not still in Italy? The police had no doubt already discovered what had occurred at the Villa Verde, and from Rome my description had probably been telegraphed along every line of railway.Next morning, however, before it was light, I descended from the omnibus-train that had crawled up the Alpine slopes and through the Mont Cenis tunnel, and found myself upon the long dreary platform at the French frontier, Modane.I had now to face the pair of scrutinising Italian detectives who I knew stood at the door of the Custom House watching every one who leaves the country.It was a breathless moment. If I passed them without recognition I should be free. If not—well it would mean disaster, terrible and complete, both for me and to the woman I so dearly loved.I was risking all, for her sake, because she was mine. I was striving to solve the mystery, and to gain knowledge that would place her beyond the reach of that blackguard who held her so irrevocably in his power.Summoning all my courage I gripped the bundle which contained a few necessaries—for the remainder of my luggage I had sent direct to Charing Cross and posted the receipt for it to my club—and went forward into the Custom House, displaying my belongings to the Frenchdouanier.They had been viséd, I had tied them up again in the big handkerchief, and was passing out.Another moment and I should be upon French territory.Suddenly, however, a heavy hand was placed upon my shoulder, and a voice exclaimed in Italian:—“One moment! Excuse me. I have a word to say to you!”Turning with a start I faced a short man in a light tweed suit, while behind him stood the two detectives.My heart sank within me. I knew that the affair at the Villa Verde had been discovered, and that I was lost!

The half-open door through which I had been watching the men’s mysterious movements, and the discovery of the fugitive’s hidden wealth, suddenly closed of its own accord, with the heavy clang of iron.

Besides startling me, it left me in semi-darkness in the great salon.

I heard them rush frantically towards it, trying to open it, but their efforts were unavailing. Loud imprecations escaped them, for they believed that some person had imprisoned them. If they succeeded in escaping they would certainly discover me, therefore my position was one of extreme peril.

But I recollected the strange ticking of that clock which had commenced when the secret cupboard had been opened. The ticking had now ceased, therefore the door had closed automatically upon the intruders. By some clever contrivance Nardini had connected his secret hiding-place with the door that had been strengthened and lined with steel, enamelled white to match the wood-work of the salon. By a clockwork arrangement the door would evidently close upon the inquisitive person who opened the cupboard at a certain time afterwards.

When the little clock standing upon the pearl-inlaid cabinet had suddenly broken the silence by ticking it had attracted my attention, but I quickly forgot it in watching the trio so narrowly. The study window was evidently strongly barred, as were all the windows of the ground floor of the villa, the bars being built into the wall outside the house in such a manner that they could only be filed through, an operation which would take considerable time even with proper tools.

They hammered upon the door and threw their weight upon it, but it did not budge. Evidently by the same mechanical contrivance several strong steel bolts had been shot into their sockets.

The trio at the very moment of their sudden acquisition of Nardini’s dishonestly obtained wealth had been entrapped.

“We’re discovered!” I heard Miller cry in English.

“Whoever has found us has locked us in!”

It never occurred to them that the cupboard and the door were connected, or that Nardini had invented such an ingenious contrivance in order to entrap any thief who might discover his secret.

“We must get out of this as quickly as possible!” Gavazzi exclaimed breathlessly. “Let’s make the division of the money afterwards.”

“The window!” suggested the younger man, but a rapid examination proved it to be too strongly barred.

I heard them within the room consulting with each other as to what could be done, and was amused at their chagrin, having discovered the dead man’s hoard only to be so unexpectedly imprisoned with the wealth upon them.

The two Italians showered fierce imprecations upon whoever had bolted them in, and vowed that the police should never take them alive. They knew, too well, the serious charge they would have to face, for they knew that the body of the detective left in charge would be discovered behind the side door.

A heavy piece of furniture was brought to play upon the study door, but the sound made as they battered with it revealed to them that they were endeavouring to break down iron.

“Hush!” cried Miller suddenly. “We mustn’t make a noise like that. There are probablycontadiniliving in the vicinity, and it will awaken them.”

“Bah!” responded the doctor. “They’ll only believe that it’s a ghost. Here thecontadiniare most superstitious.”

“But thecarabinieriare not,” remarked the young accomplice apprehensively. “My own idea is that we’ve been followed. I noticed a man in a dark suit looking very hard at us when we left the train.”

“What kind of man?” the doctor inquired quickly.

“Looked like an Inglese signore, rather tall, about thirty, and wore a dark suit.”

“Why in the name of Fate didn’t you mention it to us at the time?” cried Miller. “An Inglese! Who could he possibly be? Have you ever seen him before?”

“Never.”

“Then he may have followed us here and alarmed thecarabinieri!” gasped the doctor. “We must escape—before they arrest us!”

I saw that the young thief had noticed me when I had followed them out into the darkness from the station at Tivoli. He would therefore recognise me if we met again.

They would, no doubt, make a desperate attempt at escape. Yet should I raise the alarm and call the police? Was it policy on my part to do so? If Lucie’s father were arrested, Lucie herself must surely be implicated, and perhaps through Gordon-Wright my own dear love might also find herself in the criminal’s dock.

The mystery had grown so complicated and so inexplicable that I feared to take any step towards the denunciation of the thieves.

My only policy was to wait and to watch.

I recollected Ella’s appeal to me to remain silent concerning the scoundrel under whose banal thrall she had so mysteriously fallen, and I feared that if I made my statement it might lead to the fellow’s arrest.

What, I wondered, was the true explication of the mystery of the unknown girl being found in that room wherein the three thieves were entrapped? Who was she? What did Lucie know concerning her?

A great fear possessed me that the police, in searching, would discover Lucie in Leghorn, though in Italy the detectives always find more difficulty in tracing foreigners than the Italians themselves. Every Italian, when he moves his habitation even from one street to the other, is compelled to give notice to the police. But not so the large foreign floating population who are for ever moving over the face of what is essentially a tourists’ country.

Another great crash upon the door awakened me to a sense of my peril, should these men succeed in escaping. With as little compunction as they had struck down the guard, they would, I knew, strike me down, and even though I had a revolver they were three to one. Besides, a pistol is no use against a knife in the hands of such an expert as the young thief in the grey hat whom they had so swiftly taken into their confidence.

With regret that they had seized that large amount in money, and yet in the hope that they might regain their liberty and remain for some time longer—at least until I had learned the truth concerning my well-beloved—I crept softly back along the great salon, feeling my way before me with my hands. So thick was the carpet that my feet fell noiselessly, and my escape was rendered all the more easy by the noise the men were making by trying to batter down the door.

Swiftly I retraced my steps along the corridors, through the picture-gallery and the older wing of the great house, until I came to the long dim stone corridor. I shuddered as I passed into it, for there lay still undiscovered, and in the same position in which the assassins had left it, the body of the unfortunate police agent who had been left in charge of the fugitive’s property which had been seized by the Government. On tiptoe I approached it, and bending, replaced the revolver.

Then with a final glance at the evidence of a horrible deed—a deed committed for the lust of gold—I crept out into the early morning air which blew fresh and cool from over the mountains, causing the leaves of the vines to rustle while a loose sun-shutter creaked mournfully as it swung to and fro overhead.

Retracing my steps through the vineyard I gained the high-road, when the fancy took me to ascend to the back of the villa and listen if I could hear the imprisoned intruders.

Hardly had I reached the top of the hill when the truth was revealed to me, as I expected. Their voices could be distinctly heard, for one of those strongly barred windows that looked out upon the roadway was that of the room wherein the absconding ex-Minister had concealed the money he had filched from the public purse.

I halted in the darkness beneath the window, trying to catch the drift of the conversation, and even while I stood there one of them pulled aside the heavy curtains and allowed a stream of light to fall across the roadway. It was surely an injudicious action, yet they could not examine the bars without so doing.

Standing back in the shadow I saw them open the window and feel the strength of that thick prison-like grating, the defence in those turbulent days when the place had been a miniature fortress.

“Without a file, it’s impossible to break them,” declared Gavazzi, in a tone of deep disappointment. “But we must get out somehow. Every moment’s delay places us in graver peril. What shall we do?”

I saw that their position was utterly hopeless. They had been caught like rats in a trap. Therefore I crept along under the old stone wall of the villa and made my way down the hill in the direction of where the electric street lamps of the town of Tivoli were shining.

It was, I saw by my watch, already half-past two.

After walking near half a mile, at a bend in the road two carabineers in uniform, with their guns slung upon their shoulders, emerged suddenly upon me and called me to halt.

Imagine my confusion. I held my breath, and perhaps it was fortunate for me that the darkness hid the pallor of my face.

“Who are you?” demanded one of the rural guards in Italian, with a strong northern accent. He was Piedmontese, I think.

“I am an Englishman,” I answered, quite frankly, but making a strenuous effort to remain calm.

“So I hear by your speech,” the man replied gruffly. “And what are you doing here? The English don’t usually walk about here at this hour?”

“I’ve walked from Palestrina, and lost myself in the darkness. Is that Tivoli down yonder?”

“Yes it is. But what’s your name?” he inquired, as though my quick reply had aroused his suspicions. I regretted my words next instant. I intended to mislead the man, but he evidently did not believe me. I saw that if I was not now perfectly frank I might be arrested on suspicion and detained in the carabineer barracks until morning.

I recognised into what deadly peril my intrepidity had now led me. If they detained me the discovery of the tragedy and robbery at the Villa Verde would certainly be made, and I should find myself implicated with those three assassins. The circumstantial evidence against me would be very strong, and it might be many months before I regained my freedom. In such circumstances I should, alas! lose my Ella for ever!

“My name is Godfrey Leaf, native of London,” was my reply.

“And what brings you here? You certainly haven’t walked from Palestrina. You’d be more dusty than you are.”

“Of course he would,” remarked the man’s companion, shifting his carbine to his other shoulder. “He’s lying.”

“Well,” I said, feigning to be insulted by the fellow’s inquiries, “why should I tell you my business? It is no affair of yours, surely. Do you think I’m an assassin, or on my way to rob somecontadiniof his poultry?”

“We can never tell a man by his dress. Besides, how are we to know who you are—that you are really the person you say?”

I was silent. His question was an awkward one. But suddenly I recollected.

“Well, perhaps this will convince you that I’m a respectable person, eh?” And taking from my pocket-book my Italian revolver licence I handed it to him. He opened it suspiciously, then said; “Come farther down with us, to that light, and let’s have a good look at you.”

Now an Italian licence to carry a revolver is a very different document from that in England. It is issued only in very rare cases by the police themselves to responsible persons who first have to show that they are in danger of their lives fromvendettaor some other cause, and that to carry a weapon is for them personal defence. Upon the licence is the minute police description of the person to whom it is issued, as well as his signature, while the document is also countersigned by the Prefect of the city whence it is issued. It is therefore the best of all identification papers.

Obeying the guards, I walked with them down to the light at the town gateway where they read the official permit, closely scrutinising me as they reached each individual description, colour of hair and eyes, shape of nose, forehead and head, and the dozen other small details, all of which they found tallied with the licence.

“Born in London and domiciled in Milan, I see,” remarked the carabineer.

“I was living in Milan when I applied to the Public Security Department for the permit.”

“Well,” he said, “it’s lucky for you you had it upon you, otherwise you might have spent a day or two in prison for the untruth you told us.” And he handed back the licence to me with a grim smile. “Perhaps you’ll tell me now where you really have been?”

I saw it necessary to alter my tactics, therefore I answered with a laugh:—

“To tell the truth I came out from Rome last night to keep an appointment—a secret one—with a lady—if you really must know.”

“Then you’d better go back again to Rome,” was his answer, apparently well satisfied, and believing that story more probable. “There’s a train in twenty minutes or so, and we’ll see you into it. We are on our way to the station.”

From that moment we grew friendly, for the carabineers are a splendid body of picked men, and are always polite to the foreigner.

“You were coming down from the villa yonder,” explained the man who had interrogated me half apologetically. “Therefore we had to ascertain who you were.”

“What villa do you mean?”

“The Onorovele Nardini’s. He’s absconded, as I daresay you’ve heard.”

“Ah?” I said, “I did read in the English journals something about it. And did he live up there?”

“Yes. At the big villa. You must have passed it. He used to live here a great deal, and every one believed him to be an honest man.”

“Wasn’t he?”

“Diono! He got a million francs of the public money, and no one knows what has become of it.” Was either of these men the son of the old concierge in the Via del Tritone, I wondered? I longed to ask them, but dare not. They, of course, told me nothing regarding the mysterious discovery of a woman’s body in the ex-Minister’s study. Perhaps, indeed, they, like all others outside the confidential branch of the police service, were ignorant of it.

“And doesn’t any one know where he is?” I asked, as we strolled at length upon the dark platform of the railway station.

“Oh! He’sin esterosomewhere. We shall never get him, you may be sure. When once a man like that gets over the frontier he’s gone for ever.”

What, I wondered, would these two men think when, on the morrow, the truth of what had occurred at the Villa Verde became revealed! The body of the detective would be found, and another mystery would succeed the one which was being so carefully suppressed.

Both men accepted cigarettes from my case as we idled up and down the platform awaiting the train for Rome. It was their duty to meet all the night trains and note all arrivals and departures, therefore we passed an idle half-hour gossiping pleasantly until the train drew up, and entering a first-class compartment I bade them farewell and breathed freely again as we moved off towards the “Eternal City.”

The instant the train was clear of the station I saw my imminent peril. By ill-fortune these guards had met me, they had read my name, seen my description, and knew me well. As soon as the discovery was made in the Villa Verde—indeed, at any moment—they would telegraph those details all over the country and eagerly seek to arrest me as an accomplice. Whether Miller and his friends were arrested or not, they would naturally connect me with the affair. That was but natural.

Fortunately I had succeeded in impressing upon them that I was a respectable person, but I recognised that if I desired to retain my liberty—my liberty to free my love from that mysterious bond which held her to a scoundrel—I must escape from Italy both immediately and secretly.

Before arrival in Rome I took off the gold pince-nez I habitually wore, discarded my collar and cravat, tied my handkerchief around my neck in attempt at disguise, and so passed the barrier. Afterwards I walked some distance, and then took a cab to the hotel.

At eight o’clock, with a ticket for Florence by way of Pisa, I was in the express for the frontier at Modane. I purposely took a ticket for Florence, and then from Pisa, at two o’clock in the afternoon, I took another ticket to Turin. If my departure had been noted, they would search for me in Florence.

That journey was, perhaps, one of the most exciting in all my life. I travelled third-class, attired in an old suit, old boots, and a handkerchief tied about my neck. In Turin I had four hours to wait, as the express to Paris did not convey third-class passengers, and those four hours passed slowly, for being a constant traveller I was known by sight by the waiters in the buffet and many officials. Therefore I was compelled to avoid them. Besides, was I not still in Italy? The police had no doubt already discovered what had occurred at the Villa Verde, and from Rome my description had probably been telegraphed along every line of railway.

Next morning, however, before it was light, I descended from the omnibus-train that had crawled up the Alpine slopes and through the Mont Cenis tunnel, and found myself upon the long dreary platform at the French frontier, Modane.

I had now to face the pair of scrutinising Italian detectives who I knew stood at the door of the Custom House watching every one who leaves the country.

It was a breathless moment. If I passed them without recognition I should be free. If not—well it would mean disaster, terrible and complete, both for me and to the woman I so dearly loved.

I was risking all, for her sake, because she was mine. I was striving to solve the mystery, and to gain knowledge that would place her beyond the reach of that blackguard who held her so irrevocably in his power.

Summoning all my courage I gripped the bundle which contained a few necessaries—for the remainder of my luggage I had sent direct to Charing Cross and posted the receipt for it to my club—and went forward into the Custom House, displaying my belongings to the Frenchdouanier.

They had been viséd, I had tied them up again in the big handkerchief, and was passing out.

Another moment and I should be upon French territory.

Suddenly, however, a heavy hand was placed upon my shoulder, and a voice exclaimed in Italian:—

“One moment! Excuse me. I have a word to say to you!”

Turning with a start I faced a short man in a light tweed suit, while behind him stood the two detectives.

My heart sank within me. I knew that the affair at the Villa Verde had been discovered, and that I was lost!

Chapter Thirty Four.Love in Fetters.“Just step in here one moment,” said the man in the grey suit. “I want to ask you a question.” And he conducted me to a small office at the farther end of the platform, the bureau of the Italian police.“Now who are you?” he asked, fixing me with his keen dark eyes, while the two detectives, who had evidently been expecting my arrival and identified me from the telegraphed description, stood by watching.“My name is Sampson—Samuel Sampson,” was my prompt reply, for during the whole of the previous day I had gradually concocted a story in readiness for any emergency.“Oh!” exclaimed thedelegatoin disbelief. “And what are you?”“Under-steward on board theItaliaof the Anchor Line between Naples and New York. I landed yesterday morning at Leghorn, and am going home on a holiday to London. Why?” I asked, with feigned surprise.“You left Rome yesterday,” he said, “and your name is Godfrey Leaf,”—he pronounced it “Lif.”“Oh!” I laughed, “that’s something new. What else? If you doubt me here’s my passport. It’s an English passport with the Italian visé, and I fancy it ought to be good enough for you.”And I handed him Sammy Sampson’s passport which had been in the writing-book in my suit-case for close upon a year—ever since he and I had taken a short trip to San Sebastian, over the Spanish border.The police inspector opened the document, glanced at the visa of the Italian Consulate-General in London, and carefully spelt the name of Sampson.“There is no description or profession,” he remarked dubiously.“Well,” I said, “I suppose that is not the first English passport you’ve seen, is it? But I don’t think you have ever seen one different, or with fuller detail than that!”“Then you are not Godfrey ‘Lif’?” he asked, still dubious.“I’m what I’ve already told you. What do you suspect of me? I’m an Englishman travelling home, I’ve committed no crime or offence against the law, and I don’t see why I should suffer this indignity! But if you desire to be satisfied, you are perfectly at liberty to search me and my belongings.” And I handed him my bundle.“We’ve already seen it when it was examined in thedogana,” remarked one of the detectives.My revolver licence, card-case, cigarette-case and other articles that might betray me I had been careful to put in my trunk which was registered through to London. Therefore I had thoroughly assumed my friend’s identity. English passports are so vague and lax that the greatest abuses are often committed with them.I was quick to notice that my prompt reply to the questions rather nonplussed my interrogator. He took the official telegram from the table, read what it contained very carefully, and then looked long and earnestly at me.I remained firm and unmoved, well knowing that all my future happiness depended upon my calm indifference. Yet indifference at such a moment was a matter of extreme difficulty.He began to put other questions to me, in the hope, it appeared, of making me commit myself to a falsehood. But I was now thoroughly on the alert, and gave quick, unhesitating replies.Had the inspector been an Englishman he would probably have detected by my speech that I was not an under-steward, but being Italian he was thus handicapped. Indeed, so circumstantial an account did I give of getting two months’ leave from my ship to visit my mother in London, and in addition presenting a passport perfectly in order, that just before the train was leaving for France he and his companions, filled with doubt as to whether I was actually the person wanted, allowed me to walk out again upon the platform—a free man!Five minutes later I had mounted into an empty third-class compartment, but I dare not breathe before the train slowly moved away in the “direction de Paris.”The terrible anxiety of those moments will surely live with me until my dying day, for I had both love and life at stake; my own love, my well-beloved’s life!After thirty hours of slow travelling and constant stoppages and shuntings I arrived at the Gare de Lyon, and again resuming the luxury of a collar and cravat I purchased a ready-made suit of blue serge, a hard felt hat and a few necessaries, for no longer I needed the disguise of a workman.Contrary to my usual custom of going to the Grand, I put up at the Athenée, which is greatly patronised by Americans, and where I had a New York friend staying at that moment. Then, after dinner, I telegraphed to Leghorn to Lucie Miller telling her that I had left Italy, and that if she wished to communicate with me she should write or telegraph. My idea was that if her father had been arrested, as he most probably had been, she would certainly require the assistance of some friend, and might probably prefer me. Of course she would not willingly admit to me her father’s disgrace, yet by her own actions I should be pretty well able to judge what had taken place.I was eager to be back near Ella, yet before I crossed to England I determined to await a reply to my message to Lucie.For three days I remained in suspense, idling with my American friend in cafés and restaurants, and showing him Paris in a mild kind of way.I had searched the French and English newspapers diligently to learn any details of the affair at the Villa Verde, but in vain, until one evening in the reading-room of the hotel I came across a copy of theCorriere della Sera, the journal of Milan, in which was a long telegram from Rome, headed: “The Escape of the Minister Nardini: Mysterious Tragedy at the Villa Verde.”In breathless eagerness I read how the police, on going in the morning to relieve the guard placed at the villa, found the unfortunate man lying dead with a knife-wound in his heart. Thieves had evidently entered the house by the window of the study which looked out upon the roadway, for the iron bars had been filed through and a space made sufficient to admit a man. Nothing, however, had been taken, as far as could be ascertained. The study was in complete order, and the police theory was that the man in charge, hearing the noise, had entered the room only to be confronted by several men. He then fled across the house intending to get out and raise the alarm, when he was overtaken in the passage and stabbed.The theory was, of course, quite a natural one.The thieves had, it seemed, before their escape placed the room in order, closed the secret cupboard, replaced the panel, and put down the carpet as they had found it. The action of reclosing the panel had, of course, released the bolts that held the door, but they had already, by some means or other, cut through the bars. Probably they escaped without knowing that the door had been automatically released.In any case they were clear away with a sum amounting to many thousands of pounds sterling—probably the greatest haul Miller had made in all his career.There was, however, a second telegram which stated that two carabineers patrolling the road near the villa had stopped and questioned a mysterious Englishman who was now suspected to be one of the assassins, and after whom the police were in active search.Miller and his companions were actually scot-free—and with their enormous booty!No word was published regarding the mysterious discovery previously made in that house. The police were still hushing up the affair that was so shrouded in mystery, yet at the same time they evidently connected the two curious circumstances, and regarded them as a problem altogether beyond solution. Little, however, did they dream that the missing man’s secret hoard had been carried off in its entirety!Next morning, when the waiter brought my coffee, a telegram lay upon the tray. It was from Lucie, despatched the previous day from the Swiss frontier at Chiasso, announcing that she and her father were on their way to Paris and would arrive that night at the Hôtel de Grand, which proved to be a modest little place in the Rue de la Michodière, near the Boulevard des Italiens.Miller was escaping with those thick packets of thousand-franc notes which I had seen him secure, though Lucie was, of course, in entire ignorance of what had occurred.Next morning I anxiously sought her. She came to me in the little salon of the unpretending hotel, a neat figure in her blue serge travelling-dress and smart little toque. Greeting me enthusiastically, she exclaimed:—“How suddenly you went from Leghorn! I sent down to the Palace Hotel, for I wanted to see you again, but you had gone. I wanted to tell you that I’ve heard from Ella. The tenant of Wichenford has been recalled suddenly to America, and she and Mr Murray are back there for a little while. I thought you would like to know this.”“Know it? Of course I do. I shall leave Paris to-night,” I said, glad to have news of my well-beloved.“We also leave to-night. We are on our way back to Studland. Father wired me to meet him in Milan, and I did so. Then he explained that we were going home again, and that we should not return to Italy till the spring.”He would probably never return to Italy, I thought, though I said nothing, except to congratulate her upon the prospect of spending a few months in Dorsetshire at the old home she loved so well.At that moment Miller himself entered, surprised to find me there, but shaking my hand warmly said:—“Why, my dear Leaf! who would have thought to find you here? I believed you were in England.”“Miss Lucie sent me word that you were passing through Paris,” I explained, “so it was my duty to call and pay my compliments.”“We’ve just been on a flying visit to Italy,” he said. “I had some rather pressing affairs to attend to in Rome. To-night, however, we go back to Studland.”“Mr Leaf is also crossing with us,” remarked his daughter.“Oh! excellent!” exclaimed the man whom I had last seen cramming those ill-gotten notes into his pockets, his face flushed with the eager lust for wealth, his voice raised loudly in angry protest against an equal division of the booty. “We’ll meet at the Gare du Nord, eh?”Calm, grey-faced, distinguished-looking and of gentlemanly bearing, surely no one would have ever dreamed that his character was such as it really had been proved to be. He offered me a cigarette, lit one himself, and all three of us went out for a stroll along the Boulevard and the Rue de la Paix. We lunched together in one of the little restaurants in the Palais Royal, but neither by word nor deed did Miller display any fear of recognition.I wondered in what direction Gavazzi had fled; and would have given a good deal to know how they had managed to get through those formidable bars which I had believed unbreakable.Lucie’s father being with us the whole time, I had no opportunity of speaking to her alone. At three o’clock I left them at the hotel, and at nine that evening joined them in the night-mail for Calais and London.On board the steamer, Miller went below, while I got Lucie a deck-chair, wrapped her in an oilskin borrowed from a seaman, and sat beside her.The night was a perfect one, with a bright full moon shining over the Channel, and as we sat we watched the flashing light of Calais slowly disappearing at the stern.“Your father seems to be returning quite unexpectedly to England,” I said presently, after she had been admiring the reflection of the moon upon the glittering waters.“Yes. I was quite surprised. He gave me no warning. Poor old dad is always so very erratic. He told me to meet him at the Metropole in Milan, and hardly gave me time to get there. I had to leave the house within an hour of receiving his wire.”“Did he telegraph from Rome?”“No. From Ancona, on the Adriatic.”So he had escaped at once to the other side of Italy without returning to Rome.“What has Ella told you in her letter?”“Nothing more than what I have already explained. She makes no mention of—of the man whom we need not name.”“I am now going home to expose him,” I said determinedly. “I have fully considered all the risks, and am prepared to run them.”“Ah!” she cried, turning to me in quick alarm, “do not do anything rash, I beg of you, Mr Leaf! There is some mystery—a great mystery which I am, as yet, unable to fathom—but to speak at this juncture would assuredly only implicate her. Of that I feel sure from certain information already in my possession.”“You’ve already told me that. But surely you don’t think I can stand by and see her go headlong to her ruin without stretching forth a hand to save her. It is my duty, not only as her lover but also as a man. The fellow is a thief and a scoundrel.”When we love much we ourselves are nothing, and what we love is all.“I only beg of you to be patient and be silent—at least for the present,” she urged.Was she in fear, I wondered, lest any revelation I made should implicate her father? Was it possible that she had any suspicion that he was at that moment seeking asylum in his comfortable English home?All the disjointed admissions which she had made regarding her acquaintance with the dead Minister for Justice, her appeal to him to speak the truth and clear her of some mysterious stigma, and her mention of the Villa Verde out at Tivoli crowded upon me. When we suffer very much everything that smiles in the sun seems cruel.Beneath that beautiful face, pale in the bright moonbeams shining upon it, was mystery—a great unfathomable mystery. Was she not daughter of one of the cleverest thieves in Europe? And, if so, could she not most probably keep a secret if one were entrusted to her?For some ten minutes or so I was silent. The engines throbbed, the dark waters hissed past, and swiftly we were heading for the lights of Dover.At any moment Miller, who had gone below to get a whisky and soda with a friend he had met, a gentlemanly-looking Englishman, might return. I wondered whether it were judicious to tell her one fact.At last I spoke.“You recollect, Miss Miller, that you once mentioned the Villa Verde, at Tivoli, where, I think, Nardini lived the greater part of the year?”“Yes,” was her rather mechanical answer. “Why? What causes you to recollect that?”“Because—well, because the other day I learnt something in confidence concerning it.”“Concerning the villa!” she gasped, starting and turning to me with a changed expression of fear and apprehension. “What—what were you told? Who told you?”“Well, probably it is a fact of which you are unaware, for only the police know it, and they have hushed it up,” I said. “After the flight of Nardini the police who went to search the villa and seize his effects made a very startling discovery.”“Discovery! What did they find?” she inquired eagerly, her face now blanched to the lips.“The body of a young woman—the young Englishwoman who was your friend!” I said, with my eyes fixed upon her.She started forward, glaring at me open-mouthed. She tried to speak, but no sound escaped her lips. Her gloved hands were trembling, her dark eyes staring out of her head.“Then the police have searched!” she gasped at last.“They know the truth! I—I am—”And she fell back again into the long deck-chair, rigid and insensible.

“Just step in here one moment,” said the man in the grey suit. “I want to ask you a question.” And he conducted me to a small office at the farther end of the platform, the bureau of the Italian police.

“Now who are you?” he asked, fixing me with his keen dark eyes, while the two detectives, who had evidently been expecting my arrival and identified me from the telegraphed description, stood by watching.

“My name is Sampson—Samuel Sampson,” was my prompt reply, for during the whole of the previous day I had gradually concocted a story in readiness for any emergency.

“Oh!” exclaimed thedelegatoin disbelief. “And what are you?”

“Under-steward on board theItaliaof the Anchor Line between Naples and New York. I landed yesterday morning at Leghorn, and am going home on a holiday to London. Why?” I asked, with feigned surprise.

“You left Rome yesterday,” he said, “and your name is Godfrey Leaf,”—he pronounced it “Lif.”

“Oh!” I laughed, “that’s something new. What else? If you doubt me here’s my passport. It’s an English passport with the Italian visé, and I fancy it ought to be good enough for you.”

And I handed him Sammy Sampson’s passport which had been in the writing-book in my suit-case for close upon a year—ever since he and I had taken a short trip to San Sebastian, over the Spanish border.

The police inspector opened the document, glanced at the visa of the Italian Consulate-General in London, and carefully spelt the name of Sampson.

“There is no description or profession,” he remarked dubiously.

“Well,” I said, “I suppose that is not the first English passport you’ve seen, is it? But I don’t think you have ever seen one different, or with fuller detail than that!”

“Then you are not Godfrey ‘Lif’?” he asked, still dubious.

“I’m what I’ve already told you. What do you suspect of me? I’m an Englishman travelling home, I’ve committed no crime or offence against the law, and I don’t see why I should suffer this indignity! But if you desire to be satisfied, you are perfectly at liberty to search me and my belongings.” And I handed him my bundle.

“We’ve already seen it when it was examined in thedogana,” remarked one of the detectives.

My revolver licence, card-case, cigarette-case and other articles that might betray me I had been careful to put in my trunk which was registered through to London. Therefore I had thoroughly assumed my friend’s identity. English passports are so vague and lax that the greatest abuses are often committed with them.

I was quick to notice that my prompt reply to the questions rather nonplussed my interrogator. He took the official telegram from the table, read what it contained very carefully, and then looked long and earnestly at me.

I remained firm and unmoved, well knowing that all my future happiness depended upon my calm indifference. Yet indifference at such a moment was a matter of extreme difficulty.

He began to put other questions to me, in the hope, it appeared, of making me commit myself to a falsehood. But I was now thoroughly on the alert, and gave quick, unhesitating replies.

Had the inspector been an Englishman he would probably have detected by my speech that I was not an under-steward, but being Italian he was thus handicapped. Indeed, so circumstantial an account did I give of getting two months’ leave from my ship to visit my mother in London, and in addition presenting a passport perfectly in order, that just before the train was leaving for France he and his companions, filled with doubt as to whether I was actually the person wanted, allowed me to walk out again upon the platform—a free man!

Five minutes later I had mounted into an empty third-class compartment, but I dare not breathe before the train slowly moved away in the “direction de Paris.”

The terrible anxiety of those moments will surely live with me until my dying day, for I had both love and life at stake; my own love, my well-beloved’s life!

After thirty hours of slow travelling and constant stoppages and shuntings I arrived at the Gare de Lyon, and again resuming the luxury of a collar and cravat I purchased a ready-made suit of blue serge, a hard felt hat and a few necessaries, for no longer I needed the disguise of a workman.

Contrary to my usual custom of going to the Grand, I put up at the Athenée, which is greatly patronised by Americans, and where I had a New York friend staying at that moment. Then, after dinner, I telegraphed to Leghorn to Lucie Miller telling her that I had left Italy, and that if she wished to communicate with me she should write or telegraph. My idea was that if her father had been arrested, as he most probably had been, she would certainly require the assistance of some friend, and might probably prefer me. Of course she would not willingly admit to me her father’s disgrace, yet by her own actions I should be pretty well able to judge what had taken place.

I was eager to be back near Ella, yet before I crossed to England I determined to await a reply to my message to Lucie.

For three days I remained in suspense, idling with my American friend in cafés and restaurants, and showing him Paris in a mild kind of way.

I had searched the French and English newspapers diligently to learn any details of the affair at the Villa Verde, but in vain, until one evening in the reading-room of the hotel I came across a copy of theCorriere della Sera, the journal of Milan, in which was a long telegram from Rome, headed: “The Escape of the Minister Nardini: Mysterious Tragedy at the Villa Verde.”

In breathless eagerness I read how the police, on going in the morning to relieve the guard placed at the villa, found the unfortunate man lying dead with a knife-wound in his heart. Thieves had evidently entered the house by the window of the study which looked out upon the roadway, for the iron bars had been filed through and a space made sufficient to admit a man. Nothing, however, had been taken, as far as could be ascertained. The study was in complete order, and the police theory was that the man in charge, hearing the noise, had entered the room only to be confronted by several men. He then fled across the house intending to get out and raise the alarm, when he was overtaken in the passage and stabbed.

The theory was, of course, quite a natural one.

The thieves had, it seemed, before their escape placed the room in order, closed the secret cupboard, replaced the panel, and put down the carpet as they had found it. The action of reclosing the panel had, of course, released the bolts that held the door, but they had already, by some means or other, cut through the bars. Probably they escaped without knowing that the door had been automatically released.

In any case they were clear away with a sum amounting to many thousands of pounds sterling—probably the greatest haul Miller had made in all his career.

There was, however, a second telegram which stated that two carabineers patrolling the road near the villa had stopped and questioned a mysterious Englishman who was now suspected to be one of the assassins, and after whom the police were in active search.

Miller and his companions were actually scot-free—and with their enormous booty!

No word was published regarding the mysterious discovery previously made in that house. The police were still hushing up the affair that was so shrouded in mystery, yet at the same time they evidently connected the two curious circumstances, and regarded them as a problem altogether beyond solution. Little, however, did they dream that the missing man’s secret hoard had been carried off in its entirety!

Next morning, when the waiter brought my coffee, a telegram lay upon the tray. It was from Lucie, despatched the previous day from the Swiss frontier at Chiasso, announcing that she and her father were on their way to Paris and would arrive that night at the Hôtel de Grand, which proved to be a modest little place in the Rue de la Michodière, near the Boulevard des Italiens.

Miller was escaping with those thick packets of thousand-franc notes which I had seen him secure, though Lucie was, of course, in entire ignorance of what had occurred.

Next morning I anxiously sought her. She came to me in the little salon of the unpretending hotel, a neat figure in her blue serge travelling-dress and smart little toque. Greeting me enthusiastically, she exclaimed:—

“How suddenly you went from Leghorn! I sent down to the Palace Hotel, for I wanted to see you again, but you had gone. I wanted to tell you that I’ve heard from Ella. The tenant of Wichenford has been recalled suddenly to America, and she and Mr Murray are back there for a little while. I thought you would like to know this.”

“Know it? Of course I do. I shall leave Paris to-night,” I said, glad to have news of my well-beloved.

“We also leave to-night. We are on our way back to Studland. Father wired me to meet him in Milan, and I did so. Then he explained that we were going home again, and that we should not return to Italy till the spring.”

He would probably never return to Italy, I thought, though I said nothing, except to congratulate her upon the prospect of spending a few months in Dorsetshire at the old home she loved so well.

At that moment Miller himself entered, surprised to find me there, but shaking my hand warmly said:—“Why, my dear Leaf! who would have thought to find you here? I believed you were in England.”

“Miss Lucie sent me word that you were passing through Paris,” I explained, “so it was my duty to call and pay my compliments.”

“We’ve just been on a flying visit to Italy,” he said. “I had some rather pressing affairs to attend to in Rome. To-night, however, we go back to Studland.”

“Mr Leaf is also crossing with us,” remarked his daughter.

“Oh! excellent!” exclaimed the man whom I had last seen cramming those ill-gotten notes into his pockets, his face flushed with the eager lust for wealth, his voice raised loudly in angry protest against an equal division of the booty. “We’ll meet at the Gare du Nord, eh?”

Calm, grey-faced, distinguished-looking and of gentlemanly bearing, surely no one would have ever dreamed that his character was such as it really had been proved to be. He offered me a cigarette, lit one himself, and all three of us went out for a stroll along the Boulevard and the Rue de la Paix. We lunched together in one of the little restaurants in the Palais Royal, but neither by word nor deed did Miller display any fear of recognition.

I wondered in what direction Gavazzi had fled; and would have given a good deal to know how they had managed to get through those formidable bars which I had believed unbreakable.

Lucie’s father being with us the whole time, I had no opportunity of speaking to her alone. At three o’clock I left them at the hotel, and at nine that evening joined them in the night-mail for Calais and London.

On board the steamer, Miller went below, while I got Lucie a deck-chair, wrapped her in an oilskin borrowed from a seaman, and sat beside her.

The night was a perfect one, with a bright full moon shining over the Channel, and as we sat we watched the flashing light of Calais slowly disappearing at the stern.

“Your father seems to be returning quite unexpectedly to England,” I said presently, after she had been admiring the reflection of the moon upon the glittering waters.

“Yes. I was quite surprised. He gave me no warning. Poor old dad is always so very erratic. He told me to meet him at the Metropole in Milan, and hardly gave me time to get there. I had to leave the house within an hour of receiving his wire.”

“Did he telegraph from Rome?”

“No. From Ancona, on the Adriatic.”

So he had escaped at once to the other side of Italy without returning to Rome.

“What has Ella told you in her letter?”

“Nothing more than what I have already explained. She makes no mention of—of the man whom we need not name.”

“I am now going home to expose him,” I said determinedly. “I have fully considered all the risks, and am prepared to run them.”

“Ah!” she cried, turning to me in quick alarm, “do not do anything rash, I beg of you, Mr Leaf! There is some mystery—a great mystery which I am, as yet, unable to fathom—but to speak at this juncture would assuredly only implicate her. Of that I feel sure from certain information already in my possession.”

“You’ve already told me that. But surely you don’t think I can stand by and see her go headlong to her ruin without stretching forth a hand to save her. It is my duty, not only as her lover but also as a man. The fellow is a thief and a scoundrel.”

When we love much we ourselves are nothing, and what we love is all.

“I only beg of you to be patient and be silent—at least for the present,” she urged.

Was she in fear, I wondered, lest any revelation I made should implicate her father? Was it possible that she had any suspicion that he was at that moment seeking asylum in his comfortable English home?

All the disjointed admissions which she had made regarding her acquaintance with the dead Minister for Justice, her appeal to him to speak the truth and clear her of some mysterious stigma, and her mention of the Villa Verde out at Tivoli crowded upon me. When we suffer very much everything that smiles in the sun seems cruel.

Beneath that beautiful face, pale in the bright moonbeams shining upon it, was mystery—a great unfathomable mystery. Was she not daughter of one of the cleverest thieves in Europe? And, if so, could she not most probably keep a secret if one were entrusted to her?

For some ten minutes or so I was silent. The engines throbbed, the dark waters hissed past, and swiftly we were heading for the lights of Dover.

At any moment Miller, who had gone below to get a whisky and soda with a friend he had met, a gentlemanly-looking Englishman, might return. I wondered whether it were judicious to tell her one fact.

At last I spoke.

“You recollect, Miss Miller, that you once mentioned the Villa Verde, at Tivoli, where, I think, Nardini lived the greater part of the year?”

“Yes,” was her rather mechanical answer. “Why? What causes you to recollect that?”

“Because—well, because the other day I learnt something in confidence concerning it.”

“Concerning the villa!” she gasped, starting and turning to me with a changed expression of fear and apprehension. “What—what were you told? Who told you?”

“Well, probably it is a fact of which you are unaware, for only the police know it, and they have hushed it up,” I said. “After the flight of Nardini the police who went to search the villa and seize his effects made a very startling discovery.”

“Discovery! What did they find?” she inquired eagerly, her face now blanched to the lips.

“The body of a young woman—the young Englishwoman who was your friend!” I said, with my eyes fixed upon her.

She started forward, glaring at me open-mouthed. She tried to speak, but no sound escaped her lips. Her gloved hands were trembling, her dark eyes staring out of her head.

“Then the police have searched!” she gasped at last.

“They know the truth! I—I am—”

And she fell back again into the long deck-chair, rigid and insensible.

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