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Himes was a clever scoundrel, without a doubt. He had thoroughly misled a shrewd, far-seeing man like Miller, as well as myself, by his suave manner and easy-going American bonhomie.

“And now you’d better rest again,” said the inspector to me. “Don’t worry over the affair any more to-day. Leave it to us. When we find this interesting American, who gives his friends poisoned whisky, we’ll let you know.”

I thanked all three, and they withdrew.

A moment later, however, the detective who had spoken returned to me, and leaning over the bed said in a low, confidential whisper so that none could hear: —

“The dead man – Mr Miller – he bore rather a bad reputation, didn’t he? Was a bit of a mystery, I mean? Now, tell me the truth.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, in feigned surprise.

“Well, you know what we mean when we say that,” he exclaimed, smiling. “I don’t know how intimate you were with him, but the fact is that the body’s been identified as that of a man we’ve wanted for a very long time. He was generally known as Milner, and lived on the Continent a good deal. The French police sent us his photograph and description nearly three years ago. This is it.” And he showed me in secret an unmounted police portrait taken in two positions, full face and side face.

“This surprises me,” I said. “Of course I’ve never had anything to do with his business. Indeed, although I knew his daughter well, I only knew him very slightly.”

“Oh, his daughter’s all right. We have no suspicion of her.”

“Then for her sake I hope you won’t reveal to her the truth concerning her father. If he is wanted she need never know. What use is it to revile the dead?”

“Of course not, Mr Leaf,” replied the officer. “I’ve got a daughter of her age myself, therefore if the truth can possibly be kept from her I’ll keep it. Rely on me. Now,” he added, lowering his voice, “tell me – did you ever suspect Miller of being a thief?”

“Well,” I said hesitatingly, “to tell you the truth I did. Not so much from his actions as from the friends he kept. Besides, a friend of mine once declared to me that he was a black sheep.”

“My dear sir, if our information is true, he was wanted upon twenty different charges, of fraud, forgery, theft, and other things. A report from Italy is that he was chief of a very dangerous international gang. Himes may have been one of his accomplices, and quarrelled with him. In fact that’s my present theory. But we shall see.”

“Remember your promise regarding Miss Lucie,” I urged.

“I’ll not forget, never fear,” was the detective’s answer, and he turned and rejoined the other at the end of the ward.

I had only admitted my suspicions in order to make friends with the officer, and in the hope of preventing him revealing the truth to poor Lucie.

About six o’clock that evening I opened my eyes and found my neat little friend, pale and tearful, standing by my bedside.

She tried to speak, but only burst into a flood of tears.

I took her hand and held it, while the nurse, realising the situation, placed a chair for her.

“You know the terrible blow that has fallen upon me!” she faltered, in a low voice. “My poor father!”

“They have told me,” I answered, in sympathy. “How can I sufficiently express my regret!”

She shook her head in sorrow, and her great dark eyes met mine.

“Blow after blow has fallen upon me,” she sighed. “This is the heaviest!”

“I know, Miss Lucie,” I said. “But you must bear up against the terrible misfortune. We were both victims of an ingenious blackguard. What did you know of the fellow? I was under the impression that he was your friend?”

“Friend!” she echoed. “He always pretended to be – and yet he killed my poor father in secret, and tried also to take your life.”

“He believed me to be a friend of your father’s,” I said, “He told me so when I accused him of having poisoned me – he said his intention was to kill all your father’s friends, one by one.”

“He said that!” she gasped. “He actually told you that!”

“Yes. He admitted that he had poisoned me, and laughed in my face,” I answered. “But who is he? Where did you know him?”

“He was once my father’s most intimate friend.”

And while she bent over my bed, her blanched, haggard face near mine as she spoke, another figure came between myself and the light.

I turned, and saw that it was my friend the detective, while Lucie also recognised and greeted him instantly.

“As I was passing, I thought I’d just drop in and tell you, feeling sure you’d be interested,” he said, addressing me; “the fact is that this afternoon we’ve made a most amazing discovery. Perhaps you will be able to throw some light upon it. At present it is a complete and profound mystery.”

Chapter Thirty Seven
Needs some Explanation

“What is it?” I asked anxiously.

“Well,” said the officer, looking meaningly at me, “I would rather speak with you alone.”

“You mean that you want me to go away,” exclaimed Lucie quickly. “Have you discovered anything further regarding my poor father’s death?”

“No, miss. Unfortunately not. I want to consult Mr Leaf in private – only for a few minutes.”

“Certainly,” she said; and, rising, passed along the ward and out into the corridor.

“Well?” I inquired. “What is it?”

“Something that closely concerns yourself, Mr Leaf,” he said, with a curious expression upon his face. “Perhaps you will explain it.”

“Explain what?”

“The reason the Italian people have sent an agent over here to apply for your arrest and extradition upon the charge of murdering a police officer in a villa at Tivoli, near Rome.”

“They’ve done that!” I gasped, recollecting, however, that I had showed my revolver licence to the carabineer, and therefore they knew my proper name and description.

“Yes. And there is a second point which requires clearing up,” he said, rather severely. “You told me that you were only slightly acquainted with this man Miller, whereas it has been established by the Italian police that he was at that villa with you.”

“How established?”

“It appears, as far as we can gather from the police agent sent from Rome, that a young man of very bad character was seen in the vicinity of the villa on the night of the affair, and was afterwards arrested in Rome. He gave the description of one of his accomplices, an Englishman, and it proves to have been the man Miller, whom the Italian police, like ourselves, have wanted for a long time. So you see what a serious charge there is against you.”

“I quite see it,” I answered, utterly amazed that I should find such an allegation against me, after I had congratulated myself upon my clever escape.

“The Italian police ask for the arrest of both yourself and Miller.”

“Well, they won’t arrest him, at any rate,” I said. “And I doubt whether they will arrest me when I tell the whole story. You say they have made only one arrest in Rome?” I added.

“Only one.”

Then Dr Gavazzi was still at liberty. He had decamped and was in some place of safety with those packets of bank-notes with which his pockets had bulged.

It certainly seemed as though I was to be placed under arrest a second time. Formal application had been made to Scotland Yard, and the fact that I had admitted acquaintance with Miller, a known thief, did not allow them any alternative but to obey.

The detective told me that, whereupon I asked to speak with the Italian Agent.

“I’ll bring him to you in an hour’s time, or so,” was the inspector’s answer, and when he had gone Lucie returned to my side.

“You are upset, Mr Leaf. What has he discovered? Anything startling?”

“No,” was my response. “Only a fact that surprises me. Really nothing which has any important bearing upon the affair. Ah!” I sighed, “how I long to be strong enough to leave this place and to see Ella. Will you endeavour to see her? Tell her I am here. I must see her – must, you understand.”

“I’ll go straight to Porchester Terrace,” she promised. “But if you see that man Gordon-Wright say nothing. Do not mention me, remember.”

“I quite understand.” And as the nurse approached, Lucie took my hand, bending for a moment over my bed, and then left me.

An hour later my friend the detective was again at my bedside, accompanied by a short, thick-set, black-bearded little man, typically Italian.

“I hear you have been sent to England to effect my arrest,” I exclaimed in his own language.

“That is so, signore, though I much regret it.”

“You need not regret. You are only doing your duty,” I said. “But I merely wish to assure you that I have no intention of trying to escape you. In fact, I couldn’t walk the length of this room at present to save my life. I’m too weak. But before you place a constable on duty here, I would ask you one favour.”

“What is that?”

“To convey a letter for me to the secretary at the Italian Embassy in Grosvenor Square. He will give you instructions regarding me.”

“Then you are known at the Embassy!” the police agent exclaimed, in surprise.

“I think you will find that I am.”

The nurse brought a pen, ink and a sheet of paper, upon which after great difficulty I wrote a note recalling my confidential visit regarding Nardini’s death, and explaining that the police were in error in thinking that I had any hand in the death of the guardian of the Villa Verde. I had been at the villa, I admitted, but out of curiosity, as I had watched the action of Miller and his companions. If any one were sent to me from the Embassy, I said, I would make a confidential statement.

When I had sealed the letter, the police agent took it, and next morning I received a call from the official with whom I had had a chat on the occasion of my visit to the Embassy. To him I explained the whole circumstances in strictest confidence, and described the secret hiding-place in the dead man’s library where were concealed a number of official papers that were evidently of great importance.

He heard me to the end, and afterwards reassured me by saying: —

“We have already given the police commissario instructions not to take any further steps against you, Mr Leaf. We quite accept your explanation, and at the same time thank you for this further information you are able to give us. A search shall be made at the spot you indicate.”

And then I took a piece of paper and pencil, and drew a plan of the concealed cupboard and how to open the panel.

Shortly after the Embassy official had left the police agent again visited me, presented his apologies for having disturbed me, and then throughout the day I remained alone with my own apprehensive thoughts regarding Ella.

She was prevented from coming to me on account of that man in whom she went in such deadly terror. Nothing had yet got into the papers concerning the dastardly attempt upon me, for the police had been very careful to keep it from those inquisitive gentlemen-of-the-press who called at the hospital every few hours to gather news of the latest accidents or tragedies. But if Lucie had told her I knew how alarmed and anxious she would be. She loved me – ah, yes, she loved me. Of that I felt confident.

Yet would she ever be mine? Was it the end – the end of all? Was the old sweet life of that summer beside the sea dead and gone for evermore? Should I never see a red rose, her favourite flower, bloom upon its bush without this sickness of soul upon me? Should I never smell the salt of the sea, or drink the cornfields’ breaths on a moonlit night without this madness of memory that is worse than all death?

Was she lost to me – lost to me for ever?

I forgot that the inquest upon Miller was to be held that afternoon, and that Lucie was the principal witness. The Coroner, a sharp-featured, grey-bearded man, came to my bedside, and with a clerk and the foreman of the jury, put me upon oath and took my evidence – evidence to the effect that I had dined in company with the deceased at the American’s flat. I explained how our host had mixed those final drinks – draughts that he intended should be fatal.

Then when I had concluded by declaring that I had no previous knowledge of Himes, the Coroner made me sign the statement, and returned to where the jury awaited him.

The Coroner’s officer, a police-sergeant in uniform, told me that they were taking precautions to keep the affair out of the papers, as they feared that the publication of the evidence might defeat their efforts to trace Himes.

Shortly after five o’clock Lucie came again, looking pale and agitated after the ordeal of giving evidence. A verdict of “death from poison wilfully administered” had been returned.

The Coroner and jury had questioned her closely regarding her father’s mode of life and his recent movements. Of the latter she was, of course, unaware. She only knew that he had been called unexpectedly to Rome, and had returned direct to England. Of the reason of his flying visit to Italy she was entirely unaware. He seldom, she said, ever told her about his own affairs, being naturally a close man regarding everything that concerned himself.

“They asked me about the man Himes,” she said, as she sat by my bedside, “and I was compelled to tell them how he had once been poor dad’s most intimate friend.”

“Did he ever meet Ella, do you think?” I asked suddenly.

“Never to my knowledge. Why?”

“I was only wondering – that’s all. Perhaps he knew Gordon-Wright.”

“I believe he did. They met one night when we were living in rooms at Fulham, if I recollect aright, and about six months later they went for a holiday together in Germany.”

“Did you ever meet that Italian doctor Gennaro Gavazzi who lived in Rome?”

She looked at me with a quick suspicion that she was unable to disguise.

“Why do you ask that?” she inquired, without reply to my question.

“Because he was a friend of your father’s. You told me so. I once knew him slightly,” I added, in order to reassure her.

“And you didn’t know much good concerning him, eh?” she asked, looking at me apprehensively.

“He was private secretary to Nardini, I believe, was he not?”

“Yes, and his factotum. He did all his dirty work – a scoundrel of the very first water.”

“And yet your father was very friendly with him. He has been staying in Rome with him.”

“I believe he did. But I could never discover why poor dad was so fond of that man’s society. To me, it was always a mystery.” And then she went on, in a low, broken voice, to describe to me all that had occurred at the inquest.

“There was a short, dark-bearded Italian present who asked me quite a number of questions regarding poor old dad. I wonder who he was.”

“One of your father’s Italian friends most probably,” I said, reassuring her, for I did not wish her to learn that the man was a police agent from Rome seeking to establish the dead man’s identity. “But,” I added, suddenly changing the subject because she had grown despairing, “you have told me nothing of Ella. Did you go to Porchester Terrace last night, as you promised?”

“I did, but she has left London with her father. She returned to Wichenford the day before yesterday.”

“Gone! And where is Gordon-Wright?”

“All I’ve been able to find out is that he is absent from London. I called myself at his rooms in Half Moon Street, and his man told me that he was out of town – on the Continent, he believes, but is not certain.”

“Or he may be with my love,” I remarked bitterly, clenching my hands in my fierce antagonism. For me nothing lived or breathed save one life, that of my love; for her alone the sun shone and set.

The days dragged wearily by, for I was still kept in the hospital. The shock my system had suffered had been a terrible one, and according to the doctors it had been little short of a miracle that my life had been saved.

The funeral of Mr Miller, attended by his sister and three other friends, had taken place, and Lucie had accompanied her aunt back to Studland, taking with her all the dead man’s effects.

She had said nothing about the large sum in Italian bank-notes that must have been in his possession, and this somewhat puzzled me. The proceeds of the great theft at the Villa Verde must be concealed somewhere – but where?

As soon as I was able to travel I went down to Worcester, and hiring a dogcart drove out six miles along the Tenbury Road through a picturesque and fertile country glorious in its autumn gold, when of a sudden the groom raised his whip, and pointing to the left across the hedgerow to a church spire on rising ground in the distance said: —

“That’s Wichenford yonder, sir. The Place is a mile and a half farther on.”

I had never been to Ella’s home, and was wondering what kind of house it was.

At about two miles along a road to the left we came to fine lodge-gates that swung open to allow us to pass, and then driving up a long beech avenue there suddenly came into view a splendid old Tudor mansion of grey stone half covered with ivy. It had no doubt gone through some changes in modern times, but the older parts, including the Great Hall and the Tapestry Gallery, certainly were of pure Tudor structure. To me it seemed probable that the original purpose was to erect a manor house of the E form, so common in Tudor times; but if that was the intention it was never carried out, for only one block with the central projection had been completed, and the house must have taken its present form about the time of Charles the First, when two wings had been added in the rear of the then existing building.

In any case I had no idea that Wichenford Place, the home of the Worcestershire Murrays for the past three centuries, was such a magnificent old mansion.

The great oak door was open, therefore, after ringing the bell, I passed through the porch, entered the hall and glanced around, finding it most quaint and interesting, and full of splendid old furniture. Its high flat ceiling was of large size and excellent proportions, the panelling was of oak, rich in character and colouring, with beautiful carving along the top in many places. The fireplace I noticed had fluted pilasters of an early type and a mantel surmounted by arches of wood finely carved with caryatid figures supporting the frieze. The ancient fire-back bore the date 1588, while in the old armorial glass of the long windows could be seen the rose of the Tudors with the Garter and the shield of the Murrays emblazoned with various quarterings. It was a delightful old home, typically English.

Above the panelling hung many time-mellowed old family portraits, while at the far end a fine old long clock in marquetrie case ticked solemnly, and the door was guarded by the figure of a man armed cap-à-pie.

A clean-shaven man-servant in livery came along the hall towards me, and I inquired for Mr Murray.

“Not at home, sir,” was his prompt answer.

“Miss Ella?”

“What name, sir?”

I gave the man a card, and he disappeared through another door.

Three minutes later I heard a bright voice calling me: —

“Godfrey! Is it actually you!” And looking up, I saw my well-beloved standing upon the oak minstrels’ gallery, fresh and sweet in a white serge gown, and little changed from those old well-remembered days when we had met and wandered together beside the sea. Ah! how my heart leapt at sight of her.

She ran swiftly down the stairs, and next moment I held both her soft hands in mine and was looking into those beautiful blue eyes that for years had been ever before me in my day-dreams. Assuredly no woman on earth was fairer than she! Love does not come at will; and of goodness it is not born, nor of gratitude, nor of any right or reason on the earth.

“Fancy!” she cried. “Fancy your coming here. But why have you come?” she asked anxiously. “You don’t know in what peril your presence here places me.”

“Have you seen Lucie?” I asked.

“Not since she went to Italy. Has she returned?”

“Yes. I am here in order to tell you something.”

“Then let’s go into the garden. My father has gone in the car to Bewdley.” And she led me through the old stone-paved corridor and across the quiet ancient courtyard and out into a beautiful rose-garden where the high box-hedges were clipped into fantastic shapes, and the roses climbed everywhere upon their arches.

“What a delightful place!” I exclaimed. “I had no idea that Wichenford was like this.”

“Hadn’t you?” she laughed. Then sighing, she added: “Yes. I love it just as much as dear old dad does. Let us sit here.” And she sank upon an old seat of carved stone, grey and lichen-covered. It was in a spot where we were hidden by the foliage, yet before us spread the beautiful gardens with the long terrace, and beyond the broad undulating park with the great old oaks in all their autumn glory.

There in the quiet tranquillity, the silence only broken by the song of the birds, I briefly told my love of the attempt made upon my life and of the death of Lucie’s father – a story which held her speechless in amazement.

We sat there hand in hand.

“I had no idea that you were ill, otherwise I should have, of course, gone at once to see you,” she said, with the old love-looking in her dear eyes as she looked at me.

“Ah! I knew you would, my darling!” I cried, raising her hand to my lips. “I dare not write for fear that my letter might fall into that man’s hands. I called upon your aunt, and she told me that you are to be married shortly. Is that really so?” I asked huskily.

“Alas! Godfrey, it is,” she murmured. “I have tried and struggled and schemed, but I cannot escape. Ah! if my father only knew the truth concerning him! But I am compelled to wear a mask always – always. It is horrible!” And she covered her face with her hands.

“Yes, horrible!” I echoed. “Why don’t you let me stand before that thief and accuse him?”

“And reveal my secret to my father. Never – never! I would die rather than he should know.” And her face grew pale and hard, and her small hand trembling in mine.

“Ella!” I cried, kissing her passionately on her cold white lips. “How can I save you? How can I gain you for my own? This awful suspense is killing me.”

“Godfrey,” she answered, in a low, distinct voice, “we can never be man and wife – impossible, why therefore let us discuss it further? We love each other with a fond true love, it is true, fonder than man and woman ever loved before, yet both of us are longing for the unattainable,” she sighed. “My future, alas! is not in my own hands.”

“Ah! yes!” I cried in despair. “I see it all! Your fear prevents you from allowing me to unmask this man – you fear that your father should learn your secret!”

“I fear that you, too, should learn it – that instead of loving me,” she said, with a wild look in her splendid eyes, “you would hate me!”