Late one day, a fortnight after her visit to Blake's office, Vittoria returned from a call upon Myra Nell Warren, to find Oliveta in a high state of apprehension. The girl, who had evidently kept watch for her, met her at the door, and inquired, nervously:
"What news? What have you heard?"
"Nothing further, sorella mia."
"Impossible! God in Heaven! I am dying! This suspense—I cannot endure it longer."
Vittoria laid a comforting hand upon her.
"Courage!" she said. "We can only wait. I too am torn by a thousand demons. Caesar has gone, but no one knows where."
Oliveta shuddered. "We are ruined. He suspects."
"So you have said before, but how could he suspect?"
"I don't know, yet judge for yourself. I worm his secrets from him at the cost of kisses and endearments; I hold him in my arms and with smiles and caresses I lead him to betray himself. Then, suddenly, without warning or farewell, he vanishes. I tell you he knows. He has the cunning of the fiend, and your friend Signore Blake has blundered." Oliveta's face blanched with terror. She clung to her companion weakly, repeating over and over: "He will return. God help us, he will return."
"Even though he knows the truth, which is far from likely, he would scarcely dare to come here," Vittoria said, striving with a show of confidence which she did not feel to calm her foster sister.
"You do not know him as I do. You do not know the furies which goad him in his anger."
In spite of herself Vittoria felt choked again by those fears which during the days since Maruffi's disappearance she had with difficulty controlled. She knew that the net had been spread for him in all caution, yet he had slipped through it. Whether he had been warned or whether mere chance had taken him from the city at the last moment, neither she, nor Blake, nor the Chief of Police had been able to learn. All had been done with such secrecy that, except a bare half-dozen trusted officers, no one knew him to be even suspected of a part in the Mafia's affairs. Norvin had been quick to sense the possible danger to the two women, and had urged them to accept his protection; but they had convinced him that such a course had its own dangers, for in case the Mafioso was really unsuspicious the slightest indiscretion on their part might frighten him. Therefore they had insisted upon living as usual until something more definite was known.
This afternoon Vittoria had received a message from Myra Nell, requesting, or rather demanding, her immediate attendance. She had gone gladly, hoping to divert her mind from its present anxieties; but the girl had talked of little except Norvin Blake and the effect had not been calming.
Oliveta soon discovered that her sister was in a state to receive rather than give consolation.
"Carissima, you are ill!" she said with concern.
Vittoria assented. "It is my eyes—my head. The heat is perhaps as much to blame as our many worries." She removed her hat and pressed slender fingers to her throbbing temples, while Oliveta drew the curtains against the fierce rays of a westering sun. Later, clad in a loose silken robe, Vittoria flung herself upon the low couch and her companion let down her luxuriant masses of hair until it enveloped her like a cloud. She lay back upon the cushions in grateful relaxation, while Oliveta combed and brushed the braids, soothing her with an occasional touch of cool palms or straying fingers.
"How strange that both our lives should have been blighted by this man!" the peasant girl said at length.
"'Sh-h! You must not think of him so unceasingly," Vittoria warned her.
"One's thoughts go where they will when one is sick and wearied. I have grown to hate everything about me—the people, the life, the country."
"Sicily is calling you, perhaps?"
Oliveta answered eagerly, "Yes! You, too, are unhappy, my dearest. Let us go home. Home!" She let her hands fall idle and stared ahead of her, seeing the purple hills behind Terranova, the dusty gray-green groves of olive-trees, the brilliant fields of sumach, the arbors bent beneath their weight of blushing fruit. "I want to see the village people again, my father's relatives, old Aliandro, and the Notary's little boy—"
"He must be a well-grown lad, by now," murmured Vittoria. "Aliandro, I fear, is dead. But it is a long road to Terranova; we have—changed."
"Yes—everything has changed. My happiness has changed to misery, my hope to despair, my love to hate."
"Poor sister mine!" Vittoria sympathized. "Be patient. No wound is too deep for time to heal. The scar will remain, but the pain will disappear. I should know, for I have suffered."
"And do you suffer no longer? It has been a long time since you mentioned—Martel."
For a moment Vittoria remained silent, her eyes closed. When she replied it was not in answer to the question. "I can never return to Sicily, for it would awaken nothing but distress in me. But there is no reason why you should not go if you wish. You have the means, while all that I had has been given to the Sisters."
Oliveta cried out at this passionately. "I have nothing. That which you gave me I hold only for you. But I would not go alone; I shall never leave you."
"Some time you must, my dear. Our parting is not far off."
"I am not sure." The peasant girl hesitated. "Deep in your heart, do you hope to find peace inside the walls of that hospital?"
"Yes—peace, at least; perhaps contentment and happiness also."
"That is impossible," said Oliveta, at which Vittoria's hazel eyes flew open.
"Eh? Why not?"
"Because you love this Signore Blake!"
"Oliveta! You are losing your wits."
"Perhaps! But I have not lost my eyes. As for him, he loved you even inSicily."
"What then?"
"He is a fine man. I think you could hear an echo to the love you cherished for Martel, if you but listened."
Vittoria gazed at her foster-sister with a look half tender and half stern. Her voice had lost some of its languid indifference when she replied:
"Any feeling I might have would indeed be no more than an echo. I—am not like other women; something in me is dead—it is the power to love as women love. I am like a person who emerges from a conflagration, blinded; the eyes are there, but the sight is gone."
"Perhaps you only sleep, like the princess who waited for a kiss—"
Vittoria interrupted impatiently: "No, no! And you mistake his feelings. I attract him, perhaps, but he loves Miss Warren and has asked her to marry him. What is more, she adores him and—they were made for each other."
"She adores him!" echoed the other. "Che Dio! She only plays at love.Her affections are as shifting as the winds."
"That may be. But he is in earnest. It was he who gave her this social triumph—he made her Queen of the Carnival. He even bought her dresses. It was that which caused her to send for me this afternoon. Heaven knows I was in no mood to listen, but she chattered like a magpie. As if I could advise her wisely!"
"She is very dear to you," Oliveta ventured.
"Indeed, yes. She shares with you all the love that is left in me."
"I think I understand. You have principles, my sister. You have purposely barred the way to your fairy prince, and will continue sleeping."
Vittoria's brow showed faint lines, but whether of pain or annoyance it was hard to tell.
Oliveta sighed. "What evil fortune overhangs us that we should be denied love!"
"Please! Let us speak no more of it." She turned her face away and for a long time her companion soothed her with silent ministrations. Meanwhile the dusk settled, the golden flames died out of the western windows, the room darkened. Seeing that her patient slept, Oliveta arose and with noiseless step went to a little shrine which hung on the wall. She knelt before the figure of the Virgin, whispering a prayer, then lit a fresh candle for her sister's pain and left the room, partly closing the door behind her.
She had allowed the maid-servant to go for the afternoon, and found, upon examination, that the day's marketing had been neglected. There was still time, however, in which to secure some delicacies to tempt Vittoria's taste so she flung a shawl over her dark hair and descended softly to the street.
A little earlier on this same afternoon, as Norvin Blake sat at work in his office, the telephone bell roused him from deep thought. He seized the instrument eagerly, hoping for any news that would relieve the tension upon his nerves. For uncertainty as to Maruffi's whereabouts had weighed heavily upon him, especially in view of the possible danger to the woman he loved and to her devoted companion. The voice of O'Neil came over the wire, full-toned and distinct:
"Hello! Is this Blake?"—and then, "We've got Maruffi!"
"When? Where?" shouted Norvin.
"Five minutes ago; at his own house. Johnson and Dean have been watching the place. He went with them like a lamb, too. They've just 'phoned me that they're all on their way here."
"Good! Do you need me?"
"No! See you later. Good-by!"
The Acting Chief slammed up his receiver, leaving his hearer stunned at the suddenness of this long-awaited denouement.
Maruffi taken! His race run! Then this was the end of the fight! A ferocious triumph flooded Norvin's brain. With Belisario Cardi in the hands of the law the spell of the Mafia was broken. Savigno and Donnelly were as good as avenged. He experienced an odd feeling of relaxation, as if both his body and brain were cramped and tired with waiting. Then, realizing that the Countess and Oliveta must have suffered an even greater strain, he set out at once to give them the news in person.
As he turned swiftly into Royal Street he encountered O'Connell, who, noting his haste and something unusual in his bearing, detained him to ask the cause.
"Haven't you heard?" exclaimed Norvin. "Maruffi's captured at last."
"You don't mean it!"
"Yes. O'Neil told me over the wire not ten minutes ago."
O'Connell fell into step with him, saying, incredulously: "And he came without a fight? Lord! I can't believe it."
"Nor I. I expected trouble with him."
"Sure! I thought he was a bad one, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I reckon he saw he had no chance." The officer shook his red head. "It's just my blamed luck to miss the fun." O'Connell was one of the few who had been first trusted with the news of Maruffi's identity, and for the past fortnight he had been casting high and low for the Sicilian's trail. Ever since that October night when he had supported Donnelly in his arms as the life ebbed from the Chief, ever since he had knelt on the soft banquette with the sting of powder smoke in his nostrils, he had been obsessed by a fanatical desire to be in at the death of his friend's murderers. He left Blake at his destination and hurried on toward St. Phillip Street in the vague hope that he might not be too late to take a hand in some part of the proceedings.
Blake's hand was upon Oliveta's bell when the door opened and she confronted him. Her start, her frightened cry, gave evidence of the nervous dread under which she labored.
"Don't be afraid, Oliveta," he said, quickly. "I come with news—good news."
She swayed and groped blindly for support. He put out his hand to sustain her, but she shrank away from him, saying, faintly: "Then he is captured? God be praised!"
In spite of the words, her eyes filmed over with tears, a look of abject misery bared itself upon her face.
"Where is the Countess?"
"Above—resting. Come; she, too, will rejoice."
"Let me take her the news. You were going out, and—I think the air will do you good. Be brave, Oliveta; you have done your share, and there's nothing more to fear."
She acquiesced dully; her olive features were ghastly as she felt her way past him; she walked like a sick woman.
He watched her pityingly for a moment, then mounted the stairs. As he laid his hand upon the door it gave to his touch and he stood upon the threshold of the parlor. Vittoria's name was upon his lips when, by the dim evening light which came through the drawn curtains and by the faint illumination from the solitary shrine candle, he saw her recumbent form upon the couch.
She was lying in an attitude of complete relaxation, her sun-gilded hair straying in long thick braids below her waist, Those tawny ropes were of a length and thickness to bind a man about the body. Her lips were slightly parted; her lashes lay like dark shadows against her ivory cheeks.
He was swept by a sudden awed abashment. The impulse to retreat came over him, but he lacked the will. The longing which had remained so strong in him through years of denial, governing the whole course of his life, blazed up in him now and increased with every heartbeat. He found that without willing it he had come close to the couch. The girl's slim hand lay upon the cushions, limply upturned to him; it was half open and there sprang through him an ungovernable desire to bury his lips in its rosy palm. He knelt, then quailed and recovered himself. At the same instant she stirred and, to his incredulous delight, whispered his name.
A wild exultation shot through him. Why not yield to this madness, he asked himself, dizzily. The long struggle was over now. For this woman's sake he had repeatedly played the part of bravery in a fever of fear. He had done what he had done to make himself worthy of her, and now, at the last, he was to have nothing—absolutely nothing, except a memory. Against these thoughts his notions of honorable conduct hastily and confusedly arrayed themselves. But he was in no state to reason. The same enchantment, half psychic, half physical, ethereal yet strongly human, that had mastered him in the old Sicilian days, was at work upon him now. Dimly he felt that so mighty and natural a thing ought not to be resisted. He stood stiffly like a man spellbound.
It may have been Oliveta's accusation that affected the course of the sleeping woman's thoughts, it may have been that she felt the man's nearness, or that some influence passed from his mind to hers. However it was, she spoke his name again, her fingers closed over his, she drew him toward her.
He yielded; her warm breath beat upon his face; then the last atoms of self-restraint fled away from him like sparks before a fierce night wind. A fiery madness coursed through his veins as he caught her to him. Her lips were fevered with sleep. For a moment the caress seemed real; it was the climax of his hopes, the attainment of his longings. He crushed her in his arms; her hair blinded him; he buried his face in it, kissing her brow, her cheek, the curve where neck and shoulder met, and all the time he was speaking her name with hoarse tenderness.
So strangely had the fanciful merged into the real that the girl was slow in waking. Her eyelids fluttered, her breast rose and fell tumultuously, and even while her wits were struggling back to reality her arms clung to him. But the transition was brief. Her eyes opened, and she stiffened as with the shock of an electric current. A cry, a swift, writhing movement, and she was upon her feet, his incoherent words beating upon her ears but making no impression upon her brain.
"You! God above!" she cried.
She faced him, white, terror-stricken, yet splendid in her anger. She was still dazed, but horror and dismay leaped quickly into her eyes.
"Margherita! You called me. You drew me to you. It was your real self that spoke—I know it."
"You—kissed me while—I slept!"
He paled at the look with which she scorched him, then broke out, doggedly:
"You wanted me; you drew me close. You can't undo that moment—you can't. My God! Don't tell me it was all a mistake. That would make it unendurable. I could never forgive myself."
She hid her face with a choking cry of shame. "No, no! I didn't know—"
He approached and touched her arm timidly. "Margherita," he said, "if I thought you really did not call me—if I were made to believe that I had committed an unpardonable offense against your womanhood and our friendship—I would go and kill myself. But somehow I cannot believe that. I was beside myself—but I was never more exalted. Something greater than my own will made me do as I did. I think it was your love answering to mine. If that is not so—if it is all a delusion—there is nothing left for me. I have played my part out to the end. My work is done, and I do not see how I can go on living."
There was an odd mingling of pain and rapture in the gaze she raised to his. It gave him courage.
"Why struggle longer?" he urged, gently. "Why turn from love when Heaven wills you to receive it and learn to be a woman? I was in your thoughts and you longed for me, as I have never ceased, all these years, to hunger for you. Please! Please! Margherita! Why fight it longer?"
"What have you done? What have you done?" she whispered over and over. She looked toward the open door as if with thought of escape or assistance, and despite his growing hope Blake was miserable at sight of her distress.
"How came you here, alone with me?" she asked at length. "Oliveta was here only a moment ago."
"I came with good news for both of you. I met Oliveta as she went out, and when I had told her she sent me to you. Don't you understand, dear? It was good news. Our quest is over, our work is done, and God has seen fit to deliver our enemy—"
She flung out a trembling hand, while the other hid itself in the silk and lace at her breast.
"What is this you tell me? Maruffi? Am I still dreaming?"
"Maruffi has been arrested."
"Is it possible?—this long nightmare ended at last like this? Maruffi is arrested? You are safe? No one has been killed?"
"It is all right. O'Neil telephoned me and I came here at once to tell you and Oliveta."
"When did they find him? Where?"
"Not half an hour ago—at his house. We have been watching the place ever since he disappeared, feeling sure he'd have to return sooner or later, if only for a moment. He is under lock and key at this instant."
Blake attributed a stir in the hall outside to the presence of the maid-servant; Margherita, whose eyes were fixed upon him, failed to detect a figure which stood in the shadow just beyond the open door.
"Does he know of our part in it—Oliveta's part?" she asked.
"O'Neil didn't say. He'll learn of it shortly, in any event. Do you realize what his capture means? I—hardly do myself. For one thing, there's no further need of concealment. I—I want people to know who you are. It seems hardly conceivable that Belisario Cardi has gone to meet his punishment, but it is true. Lucrezia has her revenge at last. It has been a terrible task for all of us, but it brought you and me together. I don't intend ever to let you go again, Margherita. I loved you there in Sicily. I've loved you every moment, every hour—"
Blake turned at the sound of a door closing behind him. He saw Margherita start, then lean forward staring past him with a look of amazement, of frightened incredulity, upon her face. Some one, a man, had stepped into the dim-lit room and was fumbling with the lock, his eyes fixed upon them, meanwhile, over his shoulder. The light from the windows had faded, the faint illumination from the taper before the shrine was insufficient fully to pierce the gloom. But on the instant of his interruption all triumph and hope, all thoughts of love, fled from Norvin's mind, bursting like iridescent bubbles, at a touch. The flesh along his back writhed, the hair at his neck lifted itself; for there in the shadow, huge, black, and silent, stood Caesar Maruffi.
Blake heard Margherita's breath release itself. She was staring as if at an apparition. His mind, working with feverish speed, sought vainly to grasp the situation. Maruffi had broken away and come for his vengeance, but how or why this had been made possible he could not conceive. It sufficed that the man was here in the flesh, sinister, terrible, malignant as hell. Blake knew that the ultimate test of his courage had come.
He felt the beginnings of that same shuddering, sickening weakness with which he was only too familiar; felt the strength running out from his body as water escapes from a broken vessel. He froze with the sense of his physical impotency, and yet despite this chaos of conflicting emotions his inner mind was clear; it was bitter, too, with a ferocious self-disgust.
There was a breathless pause before Maruffi spoke.
"Lucrezia Ferara!" he said, hoarsely, as if wishing to test the sound of the name. "So Oliveta is the daughter of the overseer, and you are Savigno's sweetheart." His words were directed at Margherita, who answered in a thin, shrill, broken voice:
"What—are you doing—here?"
"I came for that wanton's blood. Give her to me."
"Oliveta? She is—gone."
The Sicilian cursed. "Gone? Where?"
"Away. Into the street. You—you cannot find her."
"Christ!" Maruffi reached upward and tore open the collar of his shirt.
Blake spoke for the first time, but his voice was dead and lifeless.
"Yes. She's gone. You're wanted. You must go with me!"
Maruffi gave a snarling, growling cry and his gesture showed that he was armed. Involuntarily Blake shrank back; his hand groped for his hip, but, half-way, encountered the pile of silken cushions upon which Margherita had been lying; his fingers sank into them nervously, his other hand gripped the carven footboard of the couch. He had no weapon. He had not dreamed of such a necessity.
In this imminent peril a new fear swept over him greater than any he had ever known. It was not the fear of death. It was something far worse. For the moment, it seemed to him inevitable that Margherita Ginini should, at last, learn the truth concerning him, should see him as he was that night at Terranova. Swift upon the heels of his long-deferred declaration of love would come the proof that he was a craven. Then he thought of her danger, realizing that this man was quite capable in his fury of killing her, too, and he stiffened in every fiber. His cowardice fell away from him like a rotten garment, and he stood erect.
Maruffi, it seemed, had not heard his last words, or else his mind was still set upon Oliveta. "Gone!" he exclaimed. "Then I shall not see her face grow black within my fingers—not yet. God! How I ran!" He cursed again. "But I shall not fare so badly, after all." He stirred, and with his movement Blake flew to action. Swiftly, with one sweep of his right hand, he brought the silken cushions up before his breast and lunged at his enemy. At the same instant Maruffi fired.
In the closed room the detonation was deafening; it rattled the windows, it seemed to bulge the very walls. Blake felt a heavy blow which drove the floss-filled pillows against his body with the force of a giant hammer, it tore them from his grip, it crushed the breath from his lungs and spun him half around. Seeing that he did not fall, Maruffi cocked and fired a second time without aiming, but his victim was upon him like a tiger and together they crashed back against the wall, locked in each other's arms.
Blake's will propelled him splendidly. All that indecision with which fear works upon the mind had left him, but the old contraction of his nerves still hampered his action. The blaze from Maruffi's second shot half blinded him and its breath smote him like a blow.
"Two!" he counted, wonderingly. A pain in his left side, due to that first sledge-hammer impact, was spreading slowly, but he had crossed the room under the belching muzzle of the revolver and was practically unharmed.
There began a struggle—the more terrible since it was unequal—in which the weaker man had to drive his body at the cost of tremendous effort. Blake was like a leader commanding troops which had begun to retreat. But more power came to him under the spur of action and the pressing realization that he must give Margherita a chance to get safely away. If he could not wrest the weapon from Maruffi's hands he knew that he must receive those four remaining bullets in his own body. He rather doubted that he could take that weight of lead.
He shouted to her to run, while he wrestled for possession of the gun. He had flung his right arm about his adversary's body, his other hand gripped his wrist; his head was pressed against Maruffi's chest. The weapon described swift circles, jerking parabolas and figures as the men strained to wrest it from each other. Maruffi strove violently to free his imprisoned hand, and in doing so he discharged the revolver a third time. The bullet brought a shower of plaster from the ceiling, and Blake counted with fierce exultation,
"Three!"
He gasped his warning to the woman again, then twined his leg about his antagonist's in a wrestler's hold, striving mightily to bear Maruffi against the wall. But Caesar was like an oak-tree. Failing to move him, Blake suddenly flung himself backward, with all his weight, lifting at the same instant in the hope of a fall. In this he was all but successful. The two reeled out into the room, tripped, went to their knees, then rose, still intertwined in that desperate embrace. The odd, stiff feeling in Blake's side had increased rapidly; it began to numb his muscles and squeeze his lungs. His eyes were stinging with sweat and smoke; his ears were roaring. As they swayed and turned he saw that Margherita had made no effort to escape and he was seized with an extraordinary rage, which for a brief time renewed his strength.
She was at the front window crying for help.
"Jump! For—God's sake, jump!" he shouted, but she did not obey. Instead she ran toward the combatants and seized Maruffi's free arm, in a measure checking his effort to break the other man's hold. Her closeness to danger agonized Blake, the more as he felt his own strength ebbing, under that stabbing pain in his side. He centered his force in the grip of his left hand, clinging doggedly while the Sicilian flung his two assailants here and there as a dog worries a scarf.
Blake fancied he heard a stamping of feet in the hall outside and the sound of voices, of heavy bodies crashing against the door. Maruffi heard it, too, for with a bellow of fury he redoubled his exertions. A sweep of his arm flung the girl aside; with a mighty wrench of his body he carried Blake half across the room, loosening his hold. Then he seized him by the throat and forced his head back.
[Illustration: He wrestled for possession of the gun]
The shouting outside was increasing, the pounding was growing louder. Blake's breath was cut off and his strength went swiftly; his death grip on the Sicilian's body slackened. As he tore at the fingers which were throttling him, his left hand slipped, citing to Maruffi's sleeve, and finally began clawing blindly for the weapon. The next moment he was hurled aside, so violently that he fell, his feet entangled in the cushions with which he had defended himself against the first shot.
He rose and renewed his attack, hearing Margherita cry out in horror. This time Maruffi took deliberate aim, and when he fired the figure lurching toward him was halted as if by some giant fist.
"Four!" Blake counted. He was hit, he knew, but he still had strength; there were but two more shots to come. Then he was dazed to find himself upon his knees. As if through a film he saw the Italian turn away and raise his weapon toward the girl, who was wrenching at the door.
"Maruffi!" he shouted. "Oh, God!" then he closed his eyes to shut out what followed. But he heard nothing, for he slipped forward, face down, and felt himself falling, falling, into silence and oblivion.
As O'Connell made his way toward St. Phillip Street he nursed a growing resentment at the news Norvin Blake had given him. His feeling toward Caesar Maruffi had all the fierceness of private hatred, calling for revenge, and he considered himself ill-used in that he had not even been permitted to witness the arrest. He knew Maruffi's countrymen would be likely to make a demonstration, and he was grimly desirous of being present when this occurred.
As he neared the heart of the Italian section he saw a blue-coated officer running toward him.
"What's up?" he cried. "Have the dagoes started something?"
"Maruffi was pinched, but he got away," the other answered. "Johnson is hurt, and—"
O'Connell lost the remaining words, for he had broken into a run.
A crowd had gathered in front of a little shop where the wounded policeman had been carried to await the arrival of an ambulance, and even before O'Connell had heard the full story of the escape Acting-Chief O'Neil drove up behind a lathered horse. He leaped from his mud-stained buggy, demanding, hoarsely:
"Where is he—Maruffi?"
Officer Dean, Johnson's companion, met him at the door of the shop.
"He made his break while I was 'phoning you," he answered.
"Hell! Didn't you frisk him?" roared the Chief.
"Sure! But we missed his gun."
"Caesar carries it on a cord around his neck—nigger-fashion," briefly explained O'Connell.
Dean was running on excitedly: "I heard Johnson holler, but before I could get out into the street Maruffi had shot him twice and was into that alley yonder. I tried to follow, but lost him, so I came back and sent in the alarm."
The Acting Chief cursed under his breath, and with a few sharp orders hurried off the few officers who had reached the scene. Then as an ambulance appeared he passed into the room where Johnson lay. As he emerged a moment later O'Connell drew him aside.
"Maruffi won't try to leave town till it's good and dark," he said."He's got a girl, and I've an idea he'll ask her to hide him out."
"It was his girl who turned him up—she and Blake—"
O'Connell cried, sharply: "Wait! Does he know she did that? If he does, he'll make for her, sure."
"That may be. Those two women are all alone, and I'd feel better if they were safely out of the way. I'll leave you there on the way back."
An instant later they were clattering over the uneven flags while their vehicle rocked and bounded in a way that threatened to hurl them out.
Even before they reached their destination they saw people running through the dusk toward the house in which the two girls lived and heard a shot muffled behind walls. O'Neil reined the horse to his haunches as the shrill cry of a woman rang out above them, and the next moment he and O'Connell were inside, rushing up the stairs with headlong haste. They were brought to a stop before a bolted door from behind which came the sounds of a furious struggle.
"Blake! Norvin Blake!" shouted O'Connell.
"Break it down!" O'Neil ordered. He set his back against the opposite wall, then launched himself like a catapult. The patrolman followed suit, but although the panels strained and split the heavy door held.
"By God! he's in there!" the Chief cried, as he set his shoulder to the barrier for a second time. "Once more! Together!" Through a crevice which had opened in the upper panels they caught a glimpse of the dimly lighted room. What they saw made them struggle like madmen.
Another shot sounded, and O'Neil in desperation inserted his fingers in the opening and tore at it. Through the aperture O'Connell saw Maruffi run to an open window at the rear, then pause long enough to snatch the taper from its sconce at the foot of the little shrine and, stooping, touch its flame to the long lace curtains. They promptly flashed into a blaze. Parting them, he bestrode, the sill, lowered himself outside, and disappeared. It was an old but effective ruse to delay pursuit.
"Quick! He's set fire to the place," O'Connell gasped, and dashed down the hall.
A tremendous final heave of O'Neil's body cleared his way, a few strides and he was at the window, ripping the blazing hangings down and flinging them into the court below. When he turned it was to behold in the dim twilight Vittoria Fabrizi kneeling beside Blake. Her arms were about him, her yellow hair entwined his figure.
"A light! Somebody get a light!" the Chief roared to those who had followed him up the stairs, then seeing a lamp near by he lit it hurriedly, revealing the full disorder of the room. He knelt beside Vittoria, who drew the fallen man closer to her, moaning something in Italian which O'Neil could not understand. But her look told him enough, and, rising, he ordered some one to run for a doctor. Strangers, white-faced and horrified, were crowding in; the sound of other feet came from the stairs outside, questions and explanations were noisily exchanged. O'Neil swore roundly at the crowd and drove it ahead of him down into the street, where he set a man to guard the door. Then he returned and helped the girl examine her lover's wounds. Her fingers were steady and sure, but in her face was such an abandonment of grief as he had never seen, and her voice was little more than a rasping whisper. They were still working when the doctor came, followed a moment later by a disheveled, stricken figure of tragedy which O'Neil recognized as Oliveta.
At sight of her foster-sister the peasant girl broke into a passion of weeping, but Vittoria checked her with an imperious word, meanwhile keeping her tortured eyes upon the physician. She waited upon him, forestalling his every thought and need with a mechanical dexterity that bore witness to her training, but all the while her eyes held a pitiful entreaty. Not until she heard O'Neil call for an ambulance did she rouse herself to connected speech. Then she exclaimed with hysterical insistence:
"You shall not take him away! I am a nurse; he shall stay here. Who better than I could attend to him?"
"He can stay here if you have a place for him," said the doctor. O'Neil drew him aside, inquiring, "Will he live?"
The doctor indicated Vittoria with a movement of his head. "I'm sure of it. That girl won't let him die."
The news of that combat traveled fast and far and it came to Myra Nell Warren among the first. Despite the dreadful false position in which Bernie had placed her with respect to Norvin, the girl had but one thought and that was to go to her friend. She could not endure the sight of blood, and her somewhat child-like imagination conjured up a gory spectacle. She was afraid that if she tried to act as nurse she would faint or run away when most needed. But she was determined to go to him and to assist in any way she could. It was not consistent with her ideas of loyalty to shrink from the sight of suffering even though she could do nothing to relieve it.
When she mounted the stairs to Oliveta's living-quarters she was pale and agitated, and she faltered on the threshold at the sight of strangers. Within were a newspaper reporter, a doctor, the Chief of Police, the Mayor of the city, while outside a curious throng was gathered. Seeing Miss Fabrizi, she ran toward her, sobbing nervously.
"Where is he, Vittoria? Tell me that he's—safe!"
Some one answered, "He's safe and resting quietly."
"T-take me to him."
A spasm stirred Vittoria's tired features; she petted the girl with a comforting hand, while Mayor Wright said, gently:
"It must have been a great shock to you, Myra Nell, as it was to all of us, but you may thank God he has been spared to you."
The reporter made a note upon his pad, and began framing the heart interest of his story. Here was a new and interesting aspect of an event worth many columns.
Vittoria led the girl toward her room, but outside the door Myra Nell paused, shaking in every limb.
"You—you love him?" asked the other woman.
The look which Miss Warren gave her stabbed like a knife, and when the girl had sunk to her knees beside the bed, with Blake's name upon her lips, Vittoria stood for a long moment gazing down upon her dazedly.
Later, when she had sent Myra Nell home and silence lay over the city, Norvin's nurse stole into the great front room where she had experienced so much of gladness and horror that night, and made her way wearily to the little image of the Virgin. She noted with a start that the candle was gone, so she lit a new one and, kneeling for many minutes, prayed earnestly for strength to do the right and to quench the leaping, dazzling flame which had been kindled in her heart.
Several days later Vittoria Fabrizi led Bernie Dreux into the room where Norvin lay. The little man walked on tiptoe and wore an expression of such gloomy sympathy that Blake said:
"Please don't look so blamed pious; it makes me hurt all over."
Bernie's features lightened faintly; he smiled in a manner bordering upon the natural.
"They wouldn't let me see you before. Lord! How you have frightened us!"
"My nurse won't let me talk."
Blake's eyes rested with puzzled interrogation upon the girl, who maintained her most professional air as she smoothed his pillow and admonished him not to overtax himself. When she had disappeared noiselessly, he said:
"Well, you needn't put a rose in my hand yet awhile. Tell me what has happened? How is Myra Nell?"
"She's heartbroken, of course. She came here that first night; but the smell of drugs makes her sick."
"I suppose Maruffi got away?"
Dreux straightened in his chair; his face flushed proudly; he put on at least an inch of stature. "Haven't you heard?" he inquired, incredulously.
"How could I hear anything when I'm doctored by a deaf-mute and nursed by a divinity without a tongue?"
"Maruffi was captured that very night. Sure! Why, the whole country knows about it." Again a look of mellow satisfaction glowed on the little man's face. "My dear boy, you're a hero, of course, but—there—are—others."
"Who caught him?"
"I did."
"You!" Norvin stared in open-mouthed amazement.
"That's what I said. I—me—Mr. Bernard Effingwell Dreux, the prominent cotillion leader, the second-hand dealer, the art critic and amateur detective. I unearthed the notorious and dreaded Sicilian desperado in his lair, and now he's cooling his heels in the parish prison along with his little friends."
"Why—I'm astonished."
"Naturally! I found him in Joe Poggi's house. Mr. Poggi also languishes in the bastille."
"How in the world—"
"Well, it's quite a story, and it all happened through the woman—" Bernie flushed a bit as he met his companion's eye. "When I told you about Mrs. Poggi I didn't exactly go into all the intimate—er—details. The truth is she became deeply interested in me. I told you how I met her—Well, she wasn't averse to receiving my attentions—Heavens, no! She ate 'em up! Before I knew it I found myself entangled in an intrigue—I had hold of an electric current and couldn't let go. When I didn't follow her around, she followed me. When I didn't make love, she did. She learned about Felicite, and there was—Excuse me!" Bernie rose, put his head cautiously outside the door to find the coast clear, then said: "Hell to pay! I tried to back out; but you can't back away from some women any more than you can back away from a prairie fire." He shook his head gloomily. "It seems she wasn't satisfied with Poggi; she had ambitions. She'd caught a glimpse of the life that went on around her and wanted to take part in it. She thought I was rich, too—my name had something to do with it, I presume—at any rate, she began to talk of divorce, elopement, and other schemes that terrorized me. She was quite willing that I murder her husband, poison her relatives, or adopt any little expedient of that kind which would clear the path for our true love. I was in over my depth, but when I backed water she swam out and grabbed me. When I stayed away from her she looked me up. I tried once to tell her that I didn't really care for her—only once." The memory brought beads of sweat to the detective's brow. "Between her and Felicite I led a dog's life. If I'd had the money I'd have left town.
"I'd been meeting her on street corners up to that point; but she finally told me to come to the house while Poggi was away—it was the day you were hurt. I rebelled, but she made such a scene I had to agree or be arrested for blocking traffic. She carries a dagger, Norvin, in her stocking, or somewhere; it's no longer than your finger, but it's the meanest-looking weapon I ever saw. Well, I went, along about dark, determined to have it out with her once for all; but those aristocrats during the French Revolution had nothing on me. I know how it feels to mount the steps of the guillotine.
"The Poggi's parlor furniture is upholstered in red and smells musty. I sat on the edge of a chair, one eye on her and the other taking in my surroundings. There's a fine crayon enlargement of Joe with his uniform, in a gold frame with blue mosquito-netting over it to disappoint the flies—four ninety-eight, and we supply the frame—done by an old master of the County Fair school. There's an organ in the parlor, too, with a stuffed fish-hawk on it.
"She seemed quite subdued and coy at first, so I took heart, never dreaming she'd wear her dirk in the house. But say! That woman was raised on raw beef. Before I could wink she had it out; it has an ivory hilt, and you could split a silk thread with it. I suppose she didn't want to spoil the parlor furniture with me, although I'd never have showed against that upholstery, or else she's in the habit of preparing herself for manslaughter by a system of vocal calisthenics. At any rate, we were having it hot and heavy, and I was trying to think of some good and unselfish actions I had done, when we heard the back door of the cottage open and close, then somebody moving in the hall.
"Mrs. Poggi turned green—not white—green! And I began to picture the head-lines in the morning papers! 'The Bachelor and the Policeman's Wife,' they seemed to say. It wasn't Poggi, however, as I discovered when the fellow called to her. He was breathing heavily, as if he had been running. She signaled me to keep quiet, then went out; and I heard them talking, but couldn't understand what was said. When she came back she was greener than ever, and told me to go, which I did, realizing that the day of miracles is not done. I fell down three times, and ran over a child getting out of that neighborhood." Blake, who had listened eagerly, inquired:
"The man was Maruffi?"
"Exactly! I got back to the club in time to hear about his arrest and escape and your fight here. The town was ringing with it; everybody was horrified and amazed. What particularly stunned me was the news that Maruffi, not Poggi, was the head of the Mafia; but my experience in criminal work has taught me to be guided by circumstances, and not theory, so when I learned more about Caesar's escape I fell to wondering where he could hide. Then I recalled his secret meetings with Joe Poggi and that scalding volcano of emotion from whom I had just been delivered. Her fright, when she let me out, something familiar in the voice which called to her, came back, and—well, I couldn't help guessing the truth. Maruffi was in the house of one of the officers who was supposed to be hunting him."
"But his capture?"
"Simple enough. I went to O'Neil and told him. We got a posse together and went after him. We descended in such force and so suddenly that he didn't have a chance to resist. If I'd known who he was at first I'd have tried to take him single-handed."
"Then it's well you didn't know." Blake smiled.
"What bothers me," Dreux confessed, "is how Mrs. Poggi regards my action. I—I hate to appear a cad. I'd apologize if I dared."
Vittoria appeared to warn Dreux that his visit must end. When the little man had gone Norvin inquired:
"You knew of Maruffi's arrest?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You were in no condition to hear news of importance."
"Is that why you have been so silent?"
"Hush! You have talked quite enough for the present."
"You act strangely—differently," he insisted.
"I am your nurse. I am responsible for your recovery, so I do as I am ordered."
"And you haven't changed?" he inquired, wistfully.
"Not at all, I am quite the same—quite the same girl you knew in Sicily!" He did not relish her undertone, and wondered if illness had quickened his imagination, if he was forever seeing more in her manner, hearing more in her words than she meant. There was something intangibly cold and distant about her, or seemed to be. During the first feverish hours after his return to consciousness he had seen her hanging over him with a wonderful loving tenderness—it was that which had closed his wounds and brought him back toward health so swiftly; but as his brain had cleared and he had grown more rational this vision had disappeared along with his other fancies.
He wondered whether knowledge of his pseudo-engagement to Myra Nell had anything to do with her manner. He knew that she was in the girl's confidence. Naturally, he himself was not quite at his ease in regard to Miss Warren. The rumor about his advancing the money for her Carnival expenses had been quieted through Bernie's efforts, and the knowledge of it restricted to a necessary few. Although Myra Nell had refused his offers of marriage and treated the matter lightly, he could not help feeling that this attitude was assumed or exaggerated to cover her humiliation—or was it something deeper? It would be terrible if she really cared for him in earnest. Her own character protected her from scandal. The breaking-off of his supposed engagement with her could not hurt her—unless she really loved him. He closed his eyes, cursing Bernie inwardly. After a time he again addressed Vittoria.
"Tell me," he said, "how Maruffi came to spare you. My last vision was of him aiming—"
"He had but four shots."
"Four?"
"Yes, he had used two in his escape from the officers—before he came here."
"I see! It was horrible. I felt as if I had failed you at the critical moment, just as I failed—"
"As you failed whom?"
"Martel!" The word sounded in his ears with a terrible significance; he could hardly realize that he had spoken it. He had always meant to tell her, of course, but the moment had taken him unawares. His conscience, his inmost feeling, had found a voice apart from his volition. There was a little silence. At length she said in a low, constrained tone.
"Did you fail—him?"
"I—I did," he said, chokingly; and, the way once opened, he made a full and free confession of his craven fear that night on the road to Terranova, told her of the inherent cowardice which had ever since tortured and shamed him, and of his efforts to reconstruct his whole being. "I wanted to expiate my sin," he finished, "and, above all, I have longed to prove myself a man in your sight."
She listened with white, set face, slightly averted. When she turned to him at last, he saw that her eyes were wet with tears.
"I cannot judge of these matters," she said. "You—you were no coward the other night, amico mio. You were the bravest of the brave. You saved my life. As for that other time, do not ask me to turn back and judge. You perhaps blame yourself too much. It was not as if you could have saved Martel. It is rather that you should have at least tried—that is how you feel, is it not? You had to reckon with your own sense of honor. Well, you have won your fight; you have become a new person, and you are not to be held responsible for any action of that Norvin Blake I knew in Sicily, who, indeed, did not know his own weakness and could not guard against it. Ever since I met you here in New Orleans I have known you for a brave, strong man. It is splendid—the way in which you have conquered yourself—splendid! Few men could have done it. Be comforted," she added, with a note of tenderness that answered the pleading in his eyes—"there is no bitterness in my heart."
"Margherita," he cried, desperately, "can't you—won't you—"
"Oh," she interposed, peremptorily, "do not say it. I forbid you to speak." Then, as he fell silent, she continued in a manner she strove to make natural: "That dear girl, Myra Nell Warren, has inquired about you daily. She has been distracted, heartbroken. Believe me, caro Norvin, there is a true and loving woman whom you cannot cast aside. She seems frivolous on the surface, I grant you. Even I have been deceived. But at the time of Mr. Dreux's dreadful faux pas she was so hurt, she grieved so that I couldn't but believe she felt deeply."
Norvin flushed dully and said nothing.
Vittoria smiled down upon him with a look that was half maternal in its sweetness.
"All this has been painful for you," she said, "and you have become over-excited. You must not talk any more now. You are to be moved soon."
"Aren't you going to be my nurse any more?"
"You are to be taken home."
His hand encountered hers, and he tried to thank her for what she had done, but she rose and, admonishing him to sleep, left the room somewhat hurriedly.
In the short time which intervened before Norvin was taken to his own quarters Vittoria maintained her air of cool detachment. Myra Nell came once, bringing Bernie with her, much to the sick man's relief; his other friends began to visit him in rapidly increasing numbers; he gradually took up the threads of his every-day life which had been so rudely severed. Meanwhile, he had ample time to think over his situation. He could not persuade himself that Vittoria had been right in her reading of Myra Nell. Perhaps she had only put this view forward to shield herself from the expression of a love she was not ready to receive. He could not believe that he had been deluded, that there was in reality no hope for him.
Mardi Gras week found him still in bed and unable to witness Myra Nell's triumph. During the days of furious social activity she had little time to give him, for the series of luncheons, of pageants, of gorgeous tableaux and brilliant masked balls kept her in a whirl of rapturous confusion, and left her scant leisure in which to snatch even her beauty sleep.
Since she was to be the flower of the festival, and since her beauty was being saved for the grand climax of the whole affair, she had no idea of sacrificing it. Proteus, Momus, the Mistick Krewe of Comus, and the other lesser societies celebrated their distinctive nights with torch and float and tableau; the city was transformed by day with bunting and flags, by night it was garlanded with fire; merrymakers thronged the streets, their carnival spirit entered into every breast. It was a glad, mad week of gaiety, of dancing, of laughter, of flirting and love-making under the glamour of balmy skies and velvet torch-lit nights; and to the pleasure of the women was added the delicious torture of curiosity regarding those mysterious men in masks who came through a blaze of fire and departed, no one knew whither.
As the spirit of the celebration mounted, Myra Nell abandoned herself to it; she lived amid a bewilderment of social obligations, through which she strove incessantly to discover the identity of her King. Finding herself unsuccessful in this, her excitement redoubled. At last came his entrance to the city; the booming cannon, the applauding thousands, his royal progress through the streets toward the flower-festooned stand where she looked down upon the multitude. Miss Warren's maids of honor were the fairest of all this fair city, and yet she stood out of that galaxy as by far the most entrancing.
Her royal consort came at length, a majestic figure upon a float of ivory and gold; he took the goblet from her hand; he pledged her with silent grace while the assembled hordes shouted their allegiance to the pair. She knew he must be very handsome underneath his mask; and he was bold also, in a quite unkingly way, for there was more in his glance than the greeting of a monarch; there was ardent love, a burning adoration which thrilled her breast and fanned her curiosity to a leaping flame. This was, indeed, life, romance, the purple splendor for which she had been born. She could scarcely contain herself until the hour of the Rex ball, when she knew her chance would come to match her charm and beauty against his voiceless secrecy. She was no longer a make-believe queen, but a royal ruler, beloved by her subjects, adored by her throne-mate. Then the glittering ball that followed!—the blazing lights, the splendid pantomime, the great shifting kaleidoscope of beauteous ladies and knightly men in gold and satin and coats of mail! And, above all, the maddening mystery of that king at her side whose glances were now melting with melancholy, now ablaze with eagerness, and whose whispered words, muffled behind his mask, were not those of a monarch, but rather those of a bold and audacious lover! He poured his vows into her blushing ear; he set her wits to scampering madly; his sincere passion, together with the dream-like unreality of the scene, intoxicated her. Who could he be? How dared he say these things? What faint familiar echo did his voice possess? Which one of her many admirers had the delightful effrontery to court her thus ardently beneath a thousand eyes? He was drunk with the glory of this hour, it seemed, for he whispered words she dared not listen to. What preposterous proposals he voiced; what insane audacity he showed! And yet he was in deadly earnest, too. She canvassed her many suitors in her mind, she tried artfully to trap him into some betrayal; the game thrilled her with a keen delight. At last she realized there was but one who possessed such brazen impudence, and told him she had known him from the first, whereat he laughed with the abandon of a pagan and renewed the fervor of his suit.
Blake learned from many sources that Myra Nell had made a gorgeous Queen. The papers lauded her grace, her beauty, the magnificence of her costumes. Bernie was full of it and could talk of nothing else when he dropped in as usual.
"She's all tired out, and I reckon she'll sleep for a week. I hope so, anyhow."
"I'm sorry I couldn't see her, but I'm glad I escaped the Carnival. TheMardi Gras is hard enough on the women; but it kills us men."
"I should say so. Look at me—a wreck." After a moment he added: "You think Myra Nell is all frivolity and glitter, but she isn't; she's as deep as the sea, Norvin. I can't tell you how glad I am that you two—" Blake stirred uneasily. "I—I admire you tremendously, for you're just what I wanted to be and couldn't. I'm talking foolishly, I know, but this Carnival has made me see Myra Nell in a new light; I see now that she was born for joy and luxury and splendor and—and those things which you can give her. She's been a care to me. I've been her mother; I've actually made her dresses—but I'm glad now for all my little sacrifices." Two tears gathered and trickled down Mr. Dreux's cheeks, while Blake marveled at the strange mixture of qualities in this withered little beau. Bernie's words left him very uncomfortable, however, and the hours that followed did not lessen the feeling.
Although Myra Nell sent him daily messages and gifts—now books, now flowers, now a plate of fudge which she had made with her own hands and which he was hard put to dispose of—she nevertheless maintained a shy embarrassment and came to see him but seldom. When she did call, her attitude was most unusual: she overflowed with gossip, yet she talked with a nervous hesitation; when she found his eyes upon her she stammered, flushed, and paled; and he caught her stealing glances of miserable appeal at him. She was very different from the girl he had known and had learned to love in a big, impersonal way. He attributed the change to his own failure in responding to her timid advances, and this made him quite unhappy.
Nor did he see much of Vittoria, although Oliveta came daily to inquire about his progress.
He was up and about in time for the Mafia trial; but his duties in connection with it left him little leisure for society, which he was indeed glad to escape. New Orleans, he found, was on tiptoe for the climax of the tragedy which had so long been its source of ferment; the public was roused to a new and even keener suspense than at any time—not so much, perhaps, by the reopening of the case as by the rumors of bribery and corruption which were gaining ground. A startling array of legal talent had appeared for the defense; the trial was expected to prove the greatest legal battle in the history of the commonwealth.
Maruffi, with his genius for control, had assumed an iron-bound leadership and laughed openly at the possibility of a conviction. He had struck the note of persecution, making a patriotic appeal to the Italian populace; and the foreign section of the city seethed in consequence.
On the opening day the court-room was packed, the halls and corridors of the Criminal Court building were filled to suffocation, the neighboring streets were jammed with people clamoring for admittance and hungry for news from within. Then began the long, tedious task of selecting a jury. Public opinion had run so high that this was no easy undertaking. As day after day went by in the monotonous examination and challenge of talesmen, as panel after panel was exhausted with no result, not only did the ridiculous shortcomings of our jury system become apparent, but also the fact that the Mafia had, as usual, made full use of its sinister powers of intimidation. In view of the atrocious character of the crime and the immense publicity given it, those citizens who were qualified by intelligence to act as jurors had of necessity read and heard sufficient to form an opinion, and were therefore automatically debarred from service. It became necessary to place the final adjudication of the matter in the hands of men who were either utterly indifferent to the public weal or lacked the intelligence to read and weigh and think.
A remarkable wave of humanity seemed to have overwhelmed the city. Four out of every five men examined professed a disbelief in capital punishment, which, although it merely covered a fear of the Mafia's antagonism, nevertheless excused them for cause. Day after day this mockery went on.
As the list of talesmen grew into the hundreds and the same extraordinary antipathy to hanging continued to manifest itself, it occasioned remark, then ridicule. It would have been laughable had it not been so significant. The papers took it up, urging, exhorting, demanding that there be a stiffening of backbone; but to no effect. More than this, the Mafia had reigned so long and so autocratically, it had so shamefully abused the courts in the past, that a large proportion of honest men declared themselves unwilling to believe Sicilian testimony unless corroborated, and this prevented them from serving.
A week went by, and then another, and still twelve men who could try the issue fairly had not been found. Some few had been accepted, to be sure, but they were not representative of the city, and the list of talesmen who had been examined and excused on one pretext or another numbered fully a thousand.
Meanwhile, Maruffi smiled and shrugged and maintained his innocence.