Chapter Eleven. Which Explains the Peril of Mabel Blair.

From inquiries made by old Babbo next morning at the Cross of Malta, it appeared quite plain that Mr Richard Dawson, whoever he was, constantly visited Lucca, and always with the object of consulting the popular Capuchin brother.

Sometimes the one-eyed Englishman who spoke Italian so well would journey up to the monastery and remain there several hours, and at others Fra Antonio would come to the inn and there remain closeted in closest secrecy with the visitor.

The Ceco, so called because of his defective vision, was apparently a man of means, for his tips to the waiters and maids were always generous, and when a guest, he and his daughter always ordered the best that could be procured. They came from Florence, the padrone thought, but of that he was not quite certain. The letters and telegrams he received securing rooms were dispatched from various towns in both France and Italy, which seemed to show that they were constantly travelling.

That was all the information we could gather. The identity of the mysterious Paolo Melandrini was, as yet, unproven. My primary object in travelling to Italy was not accomplished, but I nevertheless felt satisfied that I had at last discovered two of poor Blair’s most intimate and yet secret friends.

But why the secrecy? When I recollected how close had been our friendship, I felt surprised, and even a trifle annoyed that he had concealed the existence of these men from me. Much as I regretted to think ill of a friend who was dead, I could not suppress a suspicion that his acquaintance with those men was part of his secret, and that the latter was some dishonourable one.

Soon after midday, I crammed my things into my valise, and, impelled by a strong desire to return to safeguard the interests of Mabel Blair, left Lucca for London. Babbo travelled with me as far as Pisa, where we changed, he journeying back to Florence and I picking up the sleeping-car express on its way through from Rome to Calais.

While standing on the platform at Pisa, however, the shabby old man, who had grown thoughtful during the past half-hour or so, suddenly said—

“A strange idea has occurred to me, signore. You will recollect that I learned in the Via Cristofano that the Signor Melandrini wore gold-rimmed glasses. Is it possible that he does so in Florence in order to conceal his defective sight?”

“Why—I believe so!” I cried. “I believe you’ve guessed the truth! But on the other hand, neither his servant nor the neighbours suspected him of being a foreigner.”

“He speaks Italian very well,” agreed the old man, “but they said he had a slight accent.”

“Well,” I said, excited at this latest theory. “Return at once to the Via San Cristofano and make further inquiries regarding the mysterious individual’s eyesight and his glasses. The old woman who keeps his rooms has no doubt seen him without his glasses, and can tell you the truth.”

“Signore,” was the old fellow’s answer. And I then wrote down for him my address in London to which he was to dispatch a telegram if his suspicions were confirmed.

Ten minutes later, the roaring Calais-Rome express, the limited train of three wagon-lits, dining-car and baggage-car, ran into the great vaulted station, and, wishing the queer old Babbo farewell, I climbed in and was allotted my berth for Calais.

To describe the long, wearying journey back from the Mediterranean to the Channel, with those wheels grinding for ever beneath, and the monotony only broken by the announcement that a meal was ready, is useless. You, who read this curious story of a man’s secret, who have travelled backwards and forwards over that steel road to Rome, know well how wearisome it becomes, if you have been a constant traveller between England and Italy.

Suffice it to say that thirty-six hours after entering the express at Pisa, I crossed the platform at Charing Cross, jumped into a hansom and drove to Great Russell Street. Reggie was not yet back from his warehouse, but on my table among a quantity of letters I found a telegram in Italian from Babbo. It ran:—

“Melandrini has left eye injured. Undoubtedly same man.—Carlini.”

The individual who was destined to be Mabel Blair’s secretary and adviser was her dead father’s bitterest enemy—the Englishman, Dick Dawson.

I stood staring at the telegram, utterly stupefied.

The strange couplet which the dead man had written in his will, and urged upon me to recollect, kept running in my head—

“King Henry the Eighth was a knave to his queens. He’d one short of seven—and nine or ten scenes!”

What hidden meaning could it convey? The historic facts of King Henry’s marriages and divorces were known to me just as they were known to every fourth-standard English child throughout the country. Yet there was certainly some motive why Blair should have placed the rhyme there—perhaps as a key to something, but to what?

After a hurried wash and brush up, for I was very dirty and fatigued after my long journey, I took a cab to Grosvenor Square, where I found Mabel dressed in her neat black, sitting alone reading in her own warm, cosy room, an apartment which her father had, two years ago, fitted tastefully and luxuriously as her boudoir.

She sprang to her feet quickly and greeted me in eagerness when the man announced me.

“Then you are back again, Mr Greenwood,” she cried. “Oh, I’m so very glad. I’ve been wondering and wondering that I had heard no news of you. Where have you been?”

“In Italy,” I answered, throwing off my overcoat at her suggestion, and taking a low chair near her. “I have been making inquiries.”

“And what have you discovered?”

“Several facts which tend rather to increase the mystery surrounding your poor father than to elucidate it.”

I saw that her face was paler than it had been when I left London, and that she seemed unnerved and strangely anxious. I asked her why she had not gone to Brighton or to some other place on the south coast as I had suggested, but she replied that she preferred to remain at home, and that in truth she had been anxiously awaiting my return.

I explained to her in brief what I had discovered in Italy: of my meeting with the Capuchin brother and of our curious conversation.

“I never heard my father speak of him,” she said. “What kind of man is he?”

I described him as best I could, and told her how I had met him at dinner there, in their house, during her absence with Mrs Percival in Scotland.

“I thought that a monk, having once entered an Order, could not re-assume the ordinary garments of secular life,” she remarked.

“Neither can he,” I said. “That very fact increases the suspicion against him, combined with the words I overheard later outside the Empire Theatre.” And then I went on to relate the incident, just as I have written it down in a foregoing chapter.

She was silent for some time, her delicate pointed chin resting upon her palm, as she gazed thoughtfully into the fire. Then at last she asked—

“And what have you found out regarding this mysterious Italian in whose hands my father has left me? Have you seen him?”

“No, I have not seen him, Mabel,” was my response. “But I have discovered that he is a middle-aged Englishman, and not an Italian at all. I shall not, I think, be jealous of his attentions to you, for he has a defect—he has only one eye.”

“Only one eye!” she gasped, her face blanching in an instant as she sprang to her feet. “A man with one eye—and an Englishman! Why,” she cried, “you surely don’t say that the man in question is named Dawson—Dick Dawson?”

“Paolo Melandrini and Dick Dawson are one and the same,” I said plainly, utterly amazed at the terrifying effect my words had had upon her.

“But surely my father has not left me in the hands of that fiend—the man whose very name is synonymous of all that is cunning, evil and brutal? It can’t be true—there must be some mistake, Mr Greenwood—there must be! Ah! you do not know the reputation of that one-eyed Englishman as I do, or you would wish me dead rather than see me in association with him. You must save me!” she cried in terror, bursting into a torrent of tears. “You promised to be my friend. You must save me, save me from that man—the man whose very touch deals death!” And next instant she reeled, stretched forth her thin white hands wildly, and would have fallen senseless to the floor had I not sprang forward and caught her in my arms.

Whom, I wondered, was this man Dick Dawson that she held in such terror and loathing—this one-eyed man who was evidently a link with her father’s mysterious past?