"MADAM,
"Acting under your instructions, I have caused inquiries to be made by my correspondents in Paris, London and Vienna. The man Dasso, who disappeared so suddenly from Corbo, had covered his traces so well that it was not until now that we have lit upon a clue of any sort.
"My Paris correspondent in the Rue Scribe, M. Dupine, has been watching, as you suggested, the places of entertainment and the restaurants on the boulevards. Your idea that our man would appear sooner or later at one or the other of these was quite correct. M. Dupine came face to face with him in the lounge of the Folies Bergere.
"Curiously enough, Dasso seemed to scent danger, for he left hurriedly, but Dupine succeeded in following him. He tells me he (Dupine) was reading a copy of my paper at the time he saw Dasso, and attributes the latter's flight to that fact.
"Dasso left the Gare St. Lazare the next morning, travelling to Dieppe, and so across the Channel.
"Dupine, being now known by sight to Dasso, wisely refrained from following him on to the boat, where he would have certainly been observed, but wired comprehensively to a confrere in Brighton to motor over to Newhaven and take up the chase.
"I have heard only this morning that this gentleman has been successful, and that Dasso is now staying in unpretentious lodgings in Bloomsbury, No.9,Dorrington Street.
"Having thus, madam, followed out your wishes, I have only to assure you that my information will be kept secret until such time as you give consent for publication. I thank you for your promise that I shall have first and exclusive news of eventualities, and beg to assure you of my devoted services.
"I am, madam,"Yours obediently,ALFONSO PINZATO"(Editor)."
For a long time the excuse that she would have to make to Galva before she could leave the island had been worrying Anna. She thought of Edward as she folded the letter and put it away.
"Yes, some one must travel with him—Galva would never let him go alone. Edward Sydney, the sooner you are able to travel the better I shall be pleased."
Edward's convalescence progressed apace when once his course of action was decided upon. It had been a severe blow to Galva's happiness that she was so soon to lose the little friend whom she had come to love—a blow that was not softened by Anna's asking permission to accompany him.
That her guardian was not sufficiently well to travel alone, however, made the woman's request a perfectly natural one, and when at last Edward and his self-appointed nurse, the farewells over, entered the carriage that was to convey them to the dock-side, the Queen met the situation bravely.
It was not until, from an upper window of the palace, she had seen the boat dip below the horizon, that the fall extent of her loss came home to her. She remembered, with a little catch at the heart, that Edward, whilst seeming to answer her many questions as to his return, had really most successfully evaded them.
Anna she was certain of. The new rulers of San Pietro had decided that in a month or so they would take a holiday, a little trip in which for a week or two they would become again just ordinary people. As the Duke and Duchess Armand de Choleaux Lasuer they would renew their acquaintance with the French capital and the long, straight motor roads, and afterwards, as Mr. and Mrs. Baxendale, they would take up their abode at the little Cornish cottage on the purple moors which the girl, in secret, so longed to see again.
There they were to rejoin Anna, who would have all in readiness for them, and she looked forward with delight to the time when she could wander at evening over the hills above Tremoor, watching the lighthouses flash their warnings out over the sea and the gulls circle and scream above the rocky cliffs and the restless Atlantic. It would be a real honeymoon. Armand had never been in the "Delectable Duchy," and Galva was never tired of thinking of the things she could show him in the glorious land where her girlhood had been spent so happily.
The court they held at Corbo was unpretentious in the extreme, and after the coronation and the state receptions attendant thereon, life at the palace had quieted down to a peaceful existence untrammelled by the ceremonies which appertained to larger and more important kingdoms.
The girl-queen often wondered what it would have been like had she been alone. With Armand it was just as though they were living in a glorious country home; they drove out unattended, and took motor rides to one or other of their houses in the other parts of the island with as much privacy as they had run out to Fontainebleau in the days when they had first met.
The business pertaining to the State of San Pietro was slight, and Señor Luazo, who had been elevated to the post of Chancellor, proved himself invaluable. Galva saw to it that the abuses which had sprung into being under the administration of King Enrico were remedied. Trade improved, visitors, attracted by the royal love story, came in increased numbers. The Corbians at heart were a lazy, contented people, and if only left alone the little toy kingdom really seemed to rule itself.
The boat train had drawn up at Victoria a few minutes after seven o'clock, and still Edward and Anna were sitting in one of the cushioned alcoves of the station buffet drinking coffee.
They each knew that their journey, in company, had come to an end, and they mutually avoided the subject of separation. Each felt that the address to which he or she were going would be expected by the other, and each was unwilling to give it. And so they sat and talked of many things until the clock pointed to nine o'clock. Then Anna rose and held out her hand.
"Well—good-bye for the present, Mr. Sydney," she said nervously, "I can write to you—where?"
"Oh, yes—Anna—good-bye. I—I'm a little uncertain as to my movements for the next few days. I—oh, by the bye, where are you staying?"
Anna Paluda bent down and took up her jewel case and handbag.
"Well, Mr. Sydney—I'm like you—uncertain. I have an aunt—but she may be away. Suppose we communicate in the agony column of theMorning Post—that will be romantic, won't it?" with a little smile.
"Er—yes—just the very thing. E.S. to A.P.—well, good-bye again. I'll get you a cab."
Under the glass-covered yard Edward handed Anna into a taxi which had just driven up and deposited a passenger. He tried to catch the address the woman whispered to the driver, but she spoke very low and he was unsuccessful.
He stood on the curb with his hat in his hand, smiling his farewells until the cab had passed through the gates. Then he gave a little sigh and made his way in the direction of the Park.
"So that is all," he murmured sadly to himself. "God's in His heaven, Galva's on her throne, all's right with the world—and Edward Povey's little flutter is over."
He turned slowly through the gates, and stood looking at the façade of Buckingham Palace. And as he gazed at the rows of windows and at the railed courtyard, with the sentries, his thoughts turned to another palace, a palace under a blue sky and which overlooked a glittering jewel city in the sun-kissed waters of a southern sea.
"God blessmylittle Queen," he said, and turned and walked to where the lights of Piccadilly were shining in the sky.
He wandered aimlessly along among the evening throng of pleasure seekers. He felt lost, he seemed to have forgotten that London existed. He turned into the Monico and drank a whisky and soda, and as he came out he saw a green 'bus drawing up at the curb outside the Pavilion music hall. The conductor was shouting—"Russell Square, King's Cross."
"Do you pass Abbot's Hotel?" Edward asked.
"Just near it, sir."
And Edward, giving himself no time for second thoughts, mounted to the top.
Edward entered the little vestibule of the select Bloomsbury hotel, and crossing to the office window, behind which sat a sleepy-looking book-keeper, asked for an envelope. Then taking a card from his pocket he scribbled a few words on it and enclosing it requested that it be taken up to Mrs. Povey.
A few minutes later he was following an attendant up the broad flight of carpeted stairs. It was then five minutes past ten by the clock which stood ticking sonorously in a corner of the landing.
*****
At twenty minutes to eleven Edward Povey descended the stairs and, walking quickly through the vestibule, emerged into Russell Square. There were but few people about, and no one seemed to notice the little figure which stood in indecision on the curb. Even had they done so it would have taken a student of human physiognomy of no mean order to read what was written on Edward's face. Some would have said that there was an expression of sorrow behind the eyes, others would have imagined a suggestion of a smile at the corners of the mouth, and on the whole countenance a look of joyful relief.
For some moments he stood, gazing out across the road at the lights of the Hotel Russell, and at the cabs and taxis that were drawing up before it. Then he turned with a little sigh, and made his way down Southampton Row, and along past the Museum into the glare of light at the end of the Tottenham Court Road. Here the sight of the restaurants reminded him that it was mid-day when he had taken his last meal. With the thought he crossed the road and walked up Oxford Street to Frascati's.
The supper crush in the great circular room had well began, but Edward was fortunate in finding a little table near the orchestra, and he prepared to order himself a meal in keeping with his feelings of the moment—some soup, a couple of kidneys, a kirsch omelette and a small bottle of hock.
He ate slowly and in a lazy contentment. At intervals his face changed its expression, now frowning slightly, now smiling. He asked the waiter who served him with his coffee to bring him writing materials, and pushed a clear space among the plates and glasses on the table. For perhaps ten minutes he sat deep in thought staring at the blotter, keeping time absently to a rag-time melody the little band had struck up by tapping his pen on the inkstand.
Then he squared his shoulders, finished his coffee at a gulp, and wrote—
"MY DEAR CHARLOTTE,
"I have been thinking things over, and I am willing to admit that I am not, after all, wholly surprised at the reception you gave me when I called on you this evening. But I may also say, that knowing you as I do, I was not prepared for the manner in which you acted.
"It appears to me that you might, perhaps, had you thought, chosen your expressions better. You could have been quite as effective had you been a little less vulgar, and you could have couched your suspicions of me in a less offensive manner. But let it pass.
"I can only surmise that the life of ease that you have been living for the past few months has entirely unfitted you for the management and duties of a home. I take it also that what you are pleased to term my desertion of you, accompanied as it was by ample provision for your wants, has not been distasteful to you.
"Perhaps you are right—that we had better continue to live apart. I am afraid that the future would hold many little rifts. Personally, I have led a larger, fuller life since I left England, and have seen many adventures (you would be surprised to hear that I still have a bullet in my back which I will carry to my grave). Yes, I am afraid our former existence would irritate me beyond measure. Your allowance will be paid to you as formerly. You need have no compunction in taking the money. It was fairly earned by bringing to a successful issue a difficult and delicate affair of business.
"Again, there would always be friction between us on account of our several acquaintances. I have mixed with the highest in the land, and could never tolerate the state of intimacy you tell me you are in with Uncle Jasper, a man I never pretended that I had the least affection for. He is a low fellow—and you know what I think of your Aunt Eliza.
"And so, Charlotte, we will go our own ways. The suggestion I made to-night that we should meet each anniversary of our wedding-day and dine together, I consider a good one. This will be a standing appointment, under the clock at Charing Cross Station, at seven, each third of May.
"I am glad to think that we remain friends.
"I am, dear Charlotte,"Your affectionate husband,"EDWARD."
Povey posted this letter at the office in Oxford Street, afterwards taking a cab to Victoria. Here he reclaimed his personal luggage, and had it conveyed into the Grosvenor, in which excellent hotel he engaged a modest apartment.
The taxi-cab which Edward had seen leave the courtyard of the station, and which contained Anna Paluda, bowled merrily up Victoria Street, across Trafalgar Square, and so on to Gower Street, turning off into a narrow and somewhat dingy thoroughfare which ran behind the Museum.
At Number 9, Dorrington Street, the cab drew up and Anna alighted. The driver had not particularly noticed the fare who had engaged him or he would have seen a vast difference in the woman who now tendered him a shilling and a half-crown, to the one who had entered his cab at Victoria.
The white hair which was so strong and noticeable a feature in the personality of Anna Paluda was now entirely covered up by a well-made wig of black-brown, drawn down over the ears, and a pair of slightly-smoked spectacles hid the piercing black eyes.
But a heavy veil made this alteration in the appearance of the lady very slight to the casual observer, and the chauffeur noticed nothing as, touching his cap, he restarted his car, leaving Anna standing on the pavement, her jewel case and handbag in her hands, looking up at Number 9.
It was a cheerless enough sight, dingy in the extreme, and the woman wondered that the fastidious Gabriel Dasso should have chosen such a habitation. But it was an admirable hiding-place, and doubtless the ex-dictator had only intended that it should be a temporary one. Who would think of looking for the dilettante fugitive among these sordid surroundings?
A few stone steps flanked by broken iron railings led up to a faded and blistered street-door that once had been green. The brass numeral under the knocker was hanging by one screw, and had fallen round so that it might as well have been six as nine. As Anna ascended the steps she caught a glimpse of a dirty area in which the street-lamp showed a littered profusion of bottles and jars. On a spike of one of the railings hung a tarnished and battered milk-can.
There was a semi-circular fanlight over the door through the grimy panes of which a gas-jet, innocent of globe, gave a dull glow. A light also showed beneath the blinds of the windows flanking the door-step. In the room within some one was thumping out a dismal melody on a cracked pianoforte.
The woman waited a moment to compose herself, then reached out and pulled the bell-handle. There was a jangle of wires, and somewhere at the back of the house a bell tinkled. The musician stopped in the middle of a bar, and there was silence for a few moments. Then she heard a door opened, and a shrill feminine voice shouted—
"Liz!"
Shuffling footsteps approached the door, a chain was unfastened, and the catch pulled back. Framed in the aperture stood a servant girl, small in stature, and of a dirtiness unbelievable. This presumably was Liz.
"I see you have a card in the window——"
"Rooms, eh, mum? Come inside, will yer?"
The small domestic stood aside to allow Anna to pass into the hall, then carefully wiping her hands on the torn square of coarse sacking which constituted her apron, Liz tapped at a door, and, pushing it open, motioned the visitor to walk in. Anna Paluda did so, and found herself in the apartment that contained the piano.
The room showed traces of a glory that had long departed. The furniture for the most part had been good, and was of that peculiar comfortless family of horsehair and mahogany with which the mid-Victorian epoch was blessed. There were a few pictures on the wall, one or two of which looked as though they might prove valuable could one penetrate beneath the grime with which they were covered.
There was an oval table in the centre of the room, from which the cloth had evidently been hurriedly cleared at the visitor's ring. Anna could see its crumpled dirtiness peeping from a drawer in the sideboard into which it had been hurriedly thrust. Glimpses of crockery showed beneath the shabby sofa, and over all was the same objectionable odour of meals which Anna had noticed even in the hall.
The person who rose from an arm-chair by the fire, and advanced a little to meet her, fitted the room to a nicety. She, too, was mid-Victorian, and, like her surroundings, had once been handsome. Her faded tea-gown was trimmed with still more faded lace, and faded ribbons nodded wearily in her faded cap.
Her face was pale and thin and worn, but there was a little smile which came into her pale blue eyes as she guessed Anna's errand.
"You have come about a room, madam?"
Anna nodded.
"Yes, for a few weeks—just a bed-sitting room. I want to be quiet. By the way, have you many other lodgers?"
"Two, madam; a lady on this floor"—pointing to the folding doors—"and a gentleman on the floor above. It is the room behind his that you can have, or one above it in the front."
"I think the back would suit me. The traffic at night cannot keep me awake there. Is the gentleman of quiet habits?"
"Quite. Mr. Gabriel is a foreigner, but he is most regular in all his habits. He is at home all day, reading, and he goes out in the evening. He comes in late, but we never hear him."
Anna followed the faded landlady up the creaking stairs, and gazed round as the woman held the candle up for her survey of the room. She did not take much notice of the furniture. The room seemed airy and clean, and she agreed to the price named without demur, forestalling the request for references which she saw trembling on the lady's lips by paying rent for a month in advance.
As she removed her bonnet and cloak she asked that a cup of tea might be served to her in her room. This in due course was brought up by Liz, whose appearance had undergone a slight change for the better. The new lodger made friends at once with the little maid of all work, seeing in her a possible ally of the future, and, without directly asking questions, she managed to get Liz to talk, and from her she soon learnt some of the ways of her fellow-lodger.
She discovered that Mr. Gabriel left the house about eight to half-past each evening. "An awful swell, mum; puts on a clean shirt every blessed night, an 'as one of them smash 'ats." When he came in the girl could not tell; they all went to bed and left his supper ready for him—"not much, only a basin of cold beef-tea,consommy'e calls it."
"In his room, I suppose?"
"Lor' love yer, mum, not 'im—you don't catch anybody in 'is room when 'e goes out. 'E locks it up. I makes the bed and all that while 'e's there in the mornin'."
After the girl had gone up to bed, Anna sat up reading until the chimes of some near-by church clock told the hour of midnight. All was silent in No. 9, Dorrington Street. Outside, too, it was quiet, only sometimes a hansom would rattle past the front of the house, its bells jingling, and the horse's hoofs beating merrily on the asphalt.
The woman rose and looked out into the hall. On a bracket stood an evil-smelling oil-lamp turned down low. Beside it a brass tray contained the basin ofconsomméand a dingy little metal cruet. There were two letters there also, addressed to Mr. Gabriel, and Anna took them up to examine them.
They were in her hands when she started suddenly and put them back on the tray. There was the sound of a key being inserted in the street door below, and hastily slipping back into her room, Anna put out her light and closed the door.
She heard the man come up the stairs and unlock his door and carry the tray into his room. Then a match was struck, and with a start Anna noticed a thin streak of light break out in the darkness of the wall beside her.
She noticed then for the first time that the rooms, like those below, were separated by folding doors, but in the case of the first floor they had been fastened up, and on her side had been papered over and a heavy wardrobe placed against them.
Eagerly Anna Paluda placed her eye to the crack of light beside the massive piece of furniture, but she could see nothing. She determined that when Dasso went out on the following evening she would see what could be done to widen the crack in the papered door.
A week after Anna had taken up her residence at No. 9, Dorrington Street, Señor Gabriel Dasso, as usual, left the house about eight o'clock. He had seen his fellow-lodger for the first time when he had passed her in the dimness of the stairs that night as he went out.
But the heavily veiled lady conveyed nothing to him at the moment, and the stairs disguised the height, which was so strong a characteristic of Madame Paluda. Dasso had merely raised his hat and passed on.
For some reason a bad mood was upon the ex-dictator of San Pietro. He dined as usual at an exclusive little restaurant in Soho, but his favourite dishes gave him no pleasure, and although he drank twice as much wine as was his custom, the black dog had settled firmly on his back and refused to be dislodged.
The hole-and-corner life he was leading was becoming very wearisome to a man of his tastes, and his long daylight sittings in the little Bloomsbury room were getting sadly on his nerves. As he sat over his coffee and cognac he asked himself whether all this hiding was necessary, after all.
It was only the memory of the man he had seen reading theImparcialin Paris which had prompted him to this secrecy. After all, it may have been a coincidence. True, the man had also been seen at Dieppe, but perhaps that was another coincidence. He had certainly not embarked on theArundelwith him, and at Newhaven Dasso had noticed nothing suspicious.
No, it was absurd; in the morning he would leave Dorrington Street and take up his residence at some hotel and live a life more fitted to his tastes. Mozara's body, he told himself, would have been burnt out of all recognition in the fire—and ashes tell no tales.
Curiously enough, however, the woman he had passed on the stairs would come unbidden into his mind. Perhaps some turn of the head, some gesture, some mannerism, reminded him of some one he had seen before. Later, as he walked round the promenade of the Empire the memory of the woman on the stairs remained with him. He was drinking heavily to-night, and as he drank the depression he had felt earlier in the evening returned to him tenfold; something seemed to tell him that retribution was on his heels, and little devils hammered at the cells of his brain telling him that his hour had come.
He walked home to Bloomsbury, but the exercise in the night air gave him no relief. He was full of fancies—there were steps behind him—hands stretched out and touched his shoulder. Once he seemed to hear his name called. He cursed softly and told himself that it was nerves. He had no right to coop himself up in these dingy surroundings. It was life he wanted, rich and full.
It was nerves, again, he said, that made him imagine that a bitter taste came into his mouth after he had drank hisconsomméthat night; perhaps that infernal Liz had put too much salt in it.
As he undressed, a curious feeling of lassitude came over him. He forgot his fears, forgot everything but that he wanted to sleep. He sat on the edge of the little bed and fumbled with unhandy fingers with his collar stud, but he did not undo it. With a little sigh his hands dropped nerveless into his lap and he fell back on the shabby eiderdown, his face pale and his breath coming in short, uneven gasps.
*****
In the night Dasso dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him that he awoke to find the room hazy with the grey light of the dawning. Through the little crevices between the slats of the Venetian blinds the pale radiance edged its way, giving to objects in the room a ghostly and unwonted appearance. Between the man on the bed and the window there seemed to stand the tall shadowy figure of a woman, a figure which, as he looked, moved steadily towards him.
It seemed to Dasso that the woman bent over him and that two black piercing eyes burnt into his very soul. He tried to speak but could not. Then he heard a voice. The figure was speaking to him in a whisper, low and vibrant with passion, telling him what the little devils had been hammering into his brain—that his hour had come.
"—yourhour, Gabriel Dasso, andmyhour. For fifteen years I have waited for this moment, and I have never doubted but that it would come——"
The figure rose up and it seemed to Dasso that he watched her as she glided silently about the room. It seemed to him that she took up the basin which had contained hisconsomméand emptied the little liquid which remained into the mould of a pot containing a palm which stood in the alcove by the window. The whisper went on, and now Dasso told himself that this was Miranda's companion who was in the room with him.
"—and it is curious, is it not? that so experienced a conspirator as Gabriel Dasso, master of plot and counterplot, should fail to notice that his soup had, shall we say, adistinctivetaste? Is it not curious that he should not have noticed that the lock of his door had been tampered with? You have been insensible some hours now—and you are bound and gagged. But you are awake, Dasso, and you can see what I am doing."
The figure came again over to the bed and bent down again above the bound figure.
"I am a woman of peace, Dasso, and it is no crime I am committing—only an act of justice. For fifteen years I have put the thought of vengeance out of my mind, considering the living before the dead. After to-night I will take my place again in the world, without regret and without exultation—I am a tragic figure, am I not? the mother of a murdered child.
"Any time in those fifteen years I could have killed you, you did not know me well and it would have been easy. But Iwantedyou to know me and to know why I am doing this. Perhaps God will let your agony be your expiation."
The figure rose up and crossed over to the little gas stove that stood in the fire-place. In even tones she went on—
"I am turning on the taps, here, Dasso, and all the crevices in the room are stopped up. In a little while—when—when you are quite dead, I will put a cloth over my mouth and come in and cut off the scarves which bind you—they are silk and will leave no marks. Then I will rouse the house and complain of a smell of gas, and afterwards there will be——"
The vision of the woman with the piercing eyes grew gradually fainter .... and it seemed to Dasso that he awoke suddenly.
*****
The room was quite light now. It had been a bad dream. Dasso tried to rise—why, what was this?
His hands and legs were firmly bound and his jaws ached with the strain of the gag. The air of the room was heavy with the fumes of gas, and his chest pained him as though it would burst. In his ears were weird noises and he felt the sweat of fear wet upon his forehead.
Air—he must have air. The window near him seemed to mock him with its promise of life. With an effort he managed to turn on his side, and inch by laborious inch, he worked his way to the edge of the bed—then on to the floor.
He lay for a moment, breathing heavily, his heart beating in great blows against his ribs. He struggled on to his knees and began a series of grotesque hops towards the window.
But with each movement the effort grew more difficult and the strain on his heart grew tenser. Twice he fell forward on to his face, once he struggled again to his feet. The second time he remained lying where he had fallen, his head buried in the dusty fur rug beneath his goal.
Below, in the street, he heard the jangle of milk cans. Then a man cried cheerily to his horse and a cart rattled past the house. Some sparrows flew past the window chirping and quarrelling—they made a shadow on the blinds and were gone.
If only he could throw something and break a pane of glass. Air—air—not two feet away—and life——
With a superhuman effort Dasso was on his knees again—then, a look of despair and a great fear came into the white staring face, and with no sound he rolled over and lay still.
It may be a matter of some astonishment to the few people whom I number as my intimate friends that the records of my doings from the time when Mr. Kyser accosted me as I leant on the parapet of London Bridge, to the time I left the kingdom of San Pietro, have not been chronicled by myself in the first person.
To be candid, such was my original intention, and, indeed, I commenced the task only to find that it was beyond me. There were certain incidents in the record where my actions, however well they turned out, were perhaps not the actions of a strictly honest man. These (although I wish it to be clearly understood that I regret nothing) I felt that I could not write of without feeling a not unnatural bias.
I claim that in my schemes I did harm to no one; I will even go further and claim that I have been the humble instrument by which happiness and a splendid inheritance came to Galva. Had I returned Mr. Kyser's letter to America, it would probably never have reached Mr. Baxendale. If, in an after life, I meet this latter gentleman, I will have no fear. The case of the San Pietro inheritance, had I not undertaken the matter, would have been thrown into the hands of some unknown and perhaps unscrupulous lawyer who would have exploited the affair for his benefit rather than Galva's.
I do not wish to hide the fact that it was not alone the thought of this unknown girl which embarked me on my mission. I believe that beneath the shell of the most ordinary existence there is a kernel of romance, and it was this which tempted me.
I have always held that Romance is not dead, as some would have us believe, but that it is a question of environment. I heard a lecturer once say that Yesterday was romantic, and so is To-morrow, but never To-day—our grandparents and grandchildren, but never our brothers and sisters. Who can dare to say what lies beneath the most prosaic exterior? Where is the line which marks the difference between the man who drives his omnibus down Cheapside and the charioteer of ancient Rome? One wears a shiny felt hat, and the other, I believe, affected a fillet of gold in his hair. Apart from that they are identical. I once knew a man who wore side-whiskers and lectured in little halls on temperance, and I know for a fact that an ancestor of his helped to murder a cardinal on the steps of an Italian cathedral. But I do not believe that romance is dead in my temperate friend, it is only dormant. One of these days something will stir in his mind, and he will see things as they are, just as something stirred in me that evening I looked over London Bridge. I do not expect he will murder a cardinal, they don't do those things now. I know he feels secretly proud of his descent from his violent ancestor—the murder of a cardinal ages ago is so romantic—but should his brother shoot a curate, I think he would die of shame. Yet the crimes are identical. Why is it?
It is now two years since the events recorded in this book happened, and the proof sheets have just come from the friend who has taken upon himself the task of putting my notes into story form. With them, there is a letter in which he asks me to write a final note—to tie a knot, as it were, in the string of the tale.
I must pay my friend the compliment of saying that he has made good use of the data I have given him, and he has dealt as leniently as he could with my little failings.
I have spent a very pleasant two years, and I gather from Charlotte that she is as happy as I am. Perhaps, after one of our yearly dinners we will decide to take up again the life which was interrupted by the visit of Uncle Jasper. I hope not, however.
It is May now, a month which I always spend in the little cottage at Tremoor. Their Majesties the King and Queen of San Pietro, travelling as Mr. and Mrs. Baxendale, come to Cornwall also and spend a week each year. They will be here in a few days now, and with them they are bringing the Crown Prince, as sturdy a little Estrato as ever graced a cradle. I saw him last January, for I spend the winters in the delightful climate of Corbo. I do not stay at the palace, but find it more to my taste to take a suite of rooms at the Imperial, that new hotel which faces the bay near the Casino.
I rode out to Casa Luzo a few days before I last left the island, and it was with very mixed feelings that I gazed on the stucco porch and the little garden. I thought of Galva and Armand, of old Pieto and Teresa, and the ruffian who was wounded in the leg. The place has been done up, and is, I think, in the possession of a wealthy fruit merchant of Madrid.
Pieto and Teresa were well when I last saw them. They keep a small inn on the Alcador Road, and by Teresa's careful watching of the stock, the worthy pair manage to wring from the business a fair living. They receive also a yearly sum from the Royal Pensions list.
Anna Paluda resides at the palace. I often find myself wondering what business it was that really brought her to London with me. In my pocket-book is an old and much folded cutting from theDaily Mailwhich has put strange fancies into my head. One of these days I will show Anna the cutting and watch those great black eyes as she reads it. It is a report of an inquest and goes—
"THE DORRINGTON STREET MYSTERY
"Yesterday Mr. Paxton, the coroner of St. Pancras, held an inquest on the body of the man Gabriel who was found dead in the first-floor room of a boarding-house in Dorrington Street.
"Mrs. Brand, the landlady, giving evidence, spoke of the curious habits of the deceased. Mr. Gabriel took the room about a month ago and had lived a very retired life, going out only at night.
"The servant, Elizabeth Harker, gave corroborative evidence, and spoke of the discovery of the body. She had been called at about half-past five in the morning by a Mrs. Graham, the lodger who rented the room next to the deceased. The lady complained of a smell of gas, and, together with the witness, tried to rouse Mr. Gabriel. No answer being given to their knocking, they turned the handle, and the door, to their surprise, came open.
"To a question from the coroner witness said that she had never known the deceased to sleep with his door unlocked.
"Further evidence was called showing that deceased had evidently destroyed all marks and papers that might lead to his identity. The windows of the room had been carefully plugged up and two gas jets were turned full on.
"The coroner, in a few words to the jury, said that this was one of the many cases he had had to deal with of mysterious foreigners who met no less mysterious deaths in his district.
"From the evidence he should say that Mr. Gabriel was most anxious to hide his identity, and the evidence that he did not go out in daylight pointed to the fact that he went in fear of something. The deceased seemed to be of Spanish nationality, and the recent disturbances in Barcelona made one wonder whether this man was not a refugee or a member of one of the numerous secret societies, whose plans, perhaps, he had betrayed. It looked as though his fear had got the better of him at last, and that he had chosen death at his own hands rather than at those of his enemies.
"The jury, after a few moments' deliberation, returned a verdict of suicide. The body, if not identified by to-morrow, will be buried by the authorities.
"A curious aspect of the case is that the Mrs. Graham who discovered the smell of gas has disappeared. There is nothing to connect her with the tragedy, but her evidence might have thrown some light on the affair. We understand the police, are making inquiries as to the missing woman, who took the room she occupied only a week ago."
The affair is now one of London's unsolved mysteries. Personally I have, as I said, my fancies—the date of the cutting is ten days after my arrival, with Anna, in London—but it is no business of mine.
It is peaceful here in this little spring-coloured garden. The sun has just dropped down behind a bank of storm-clouds over the sea and the lights of Pendeen are flashing out. A tramp steamer, miles away and looking like a toy on the broad Atlantic, is ploughing her way down towards the Longships. Perhaps she is going to Bilbao, or even Corbo or Rozana. Above me a large bird is planing on outstretched motionless wings in the copper blue of the sky, and the moors around me look like masses of crumpled mauve velvet in the darkening twilight.
And I—I sit here and smoke a very excellent cigar and wonder if Fate will ever stretch out her hand again to pick me up and drop me again into the whirl of things.
I say to myself that I hope not—and know that I lie.
THE END
From the Play by Wm. Devereux, produced at the New Theatre with great success by Miss Julia Neilson and Mr. Fred Terry.
A stirring Romance of the Fifteenth Century
"It is an exciting tale, and is the sort of book that once taken up cannot be laid down until concluded. At no period is it heavy."—Daily Express.
A thrilling Story of the French Revolution
"The tale moves along smoothly enough, and will give those who prefer their history served up in this guise a faint idea of the Terror and the character of the men and women who helped to make history in those troublesome times."—Glasgow Herald.