Chapter Thirty. “La Gioia.”

On the following afternoon, in response to a telegram I had sent to Beryl, she accompanied me to Highgate to face La Gioia. Now that I had such complete evidence of her attempts to poison, I did not fear her, but was determined to elucidate the mystery. Beryl accompanied me rather reluctantly, declaring that, with such power as the woman held, our lives were not safe; but I resolved to take her by surprise, and to risk all. After leaving Hoefer I had sought an interview with the detective Bullen, and he, by appointment, was in the vicinity of the house in question, accompanied by a couple of plain-clothes subordinates.

We stopped our cab in Hampstead Lane, and descending, found that the Bishop’s-wood Road was a semicircular thoroughfare of substantial detached houses, the garden of each abutting upon a cricket-ground in the centre, and each with its usual greenhouse where geraniums were potted and stored in winter. On entering the quiet, highly-respectable crescent, we were not long in discovering a house with the name “Fairmead” inscribed in gilt letters upon the gate, while a little further along my eyes caught sight of two scavengers diligently sweeping the road, and, not far away, Bullen himself was walking with his back turned towards me.

On our summons being responded to I inquired for Mrs Turton, and we were shown into the drawing-room—a rather severely furnished apartment which ran through into the greenhouse wherein stood the rare plant. Hoefer had described it minutely, and while we waited, we both peered into the greenhouse and examined it. The plant standing in the full sunlight was about two feet high, with broad, spreading leaves of a rich, dark green, and grew in an ordinary flower-pot. Half-hidden by the leaves, just as Hoefer had said, we saw some small green pods, long and narrow—the pods of the fatal vayana.

Ere we had time to exchange words the door of the room opened, and there stood before us the tall, dark-robed figure of “La Gioia.” Her hard face, pale and expectant, showed in the full light to be that of a woman of perhaps forty, with dark hair, keen, swift eyes, thin cheeks, and bony features—a countenance not exactly ugly, but rather that of a woman whose beauty had prematurely faded owing to the heavy cares upon her.

I was the first to address her, saying, “I think, madam, you are sufficiently well acquainted with both of us not to need any formal introduction.”

Her brow contracted and her lips stood apart. Then, without hesitation, I told her my name and that of my companion, while the light died from her careworn face and she stood motionless as one petrified.

“We have come here, to you, to seek the truth of the conspiracy against us—the plot in which you yourself have taken part. We demand to know the reason of the secret attempts you have made upon the lives of both of us.”

“I don’t understand you,” she answered with hauteur.

“To deny it is useless,” I said determinedly. “The insidious poison you have used is the vayana, and the only specimen in England bearing fruit is standing there in your greenhouse.” And as I uttered those words I closed the door leading beyond, and, locking it, placed the key in my pocket.

Her teeth were firmly set. She glanced at me and tried to deny the allegation, but so utterly was she taken aback by my sudden denunciation that words failed her. A moment later, however, taking several paces forward to where we stood, she cried with a sudden outburst of uncontrollable anger—

“You—Beryl Wynd—I hate you! I swore that you should die, and you shall—you shall!”

But I stepped between them, firm and determined. I saw that this woman was a veritable virago, and that now we had cornered her so neatly she was capable of any crime.

“I demand to know the truth!” I said in a hard, distinct voice.

“You will know nothing from me,” she snarled. “That woman has betrayed me!” she added, indicating Beryl.

“Your evil deeds alone have betrayed you,” I responded, “and if you decline to tell me anything of your own free will, then perhaps you will make a statement to the police when put upon your trial for attempted murder.”

“My trial!” she gasped, turning pale again. “You think to frighten me into telling you something, eh?” she laughed. “Ah! you do not know me.”

“I know you sufficiently well to be aware that you are a clever and ingenious woman,” I replied. “And in this affair I entertain a belief that our interests may, after all, be mutual.”

“How?”

“Tattersett is your enemy, as he is ours.” It was a wild shot, but I recollected his words that I had overheard in the park at Whitton. “There has been a conspiracy against myself and this lady here, who is my wife.”

“Your wife!” she gasped.

“I have spoken the truth,” I said. “I am here to learn the details from you. If, on the other hand, you prefer to preserve the secret of your accomplices, I shall demand your arrest without delay.”

She was silent. Then, after further declarations of ignorance, she was driven to desperation by my threats of arrest, and at last said in a hard, husky voice—

“I must first tell you who and what I am. My father was an English merchant, named Turton, who lived in Palermo, and my mother was Italian. Fifteen years ago I was a popular dancer, known throughout Italy as ‘La Gioia.’ While engaged at La Scala Theatre, in Milan, I met an Englishman named Ashwicke—”

“Ashwicke?” I exclaimed.

“Not the man whom you know as Ashwicke, but another,” she responded. “He was interested in the occult sciences, apparently wealthy, and much enamoured of me. In the six months of our courtship I learned to love him madly, and the result was that we were married at the Municipio, in Milan, which stands exactly opposite the entrance to the theatre. A month afterwards, however, he decamped with my jewels and the whole of the money I had saved, leaving behind him, as his only personal possessions, a box containing some rare old vellum books which he had purchased somewhere down in the old Tuscan towns, and of which he had been extremely careful. At first I could not believe that he could have treated me thus, after all his professions of love; but as the weeks passed and he did not return, I slowly realised the truth that I had been duped and deserted. It was then that I made a vow of revenge.

“Ten endless years passed, and, my personal beauty having faded, I was compelled to remain on the stage, accepting menial parts and struggling for bread until, by the death of a cousin, I found myself with sufficient to live upon. Though I had no clue to who my husband was, beyond a name which had most probably been assumed, I nevertheless treasured his books, feeling vaguely that some day they might give me a clue. In those years that went by I spent days and days deciphering the old black letters, and translating from the Latin and Italian. They were nearly all works dealing with the ancient practice of medicine, but one there was dealt with secret poisons. I have it here;” and unlocking a drawer in a rosewood cabinet, she took therefrom a big leather-covered tome, written in Latin upon vellum.

There was an old rusted lock of Florentine workmanship upon it, and the leather was worm-eaten and tattered.

“This contains the secret of the vayana,” she went on, opening the ponderous volume before me upon the table. “I discovered that the poison was the only one impossible of detection, and then it occurred to me to prepare it, and with it strike revenge. Well, although I had been in London a dozen times in search of the man I had once loved, I came again and settled down here, determined to spare no effort to discover him. Through four whole years I sought him diligently, when at last I was successful. I discovered who and what he was.”

“Who was he?” I inquired.

“The man you know as Major Tattersett. His real name is Ashwicke.”

“Tattersett?” gasped Beryl. “And he is your husband?”

“Most certainly,” she responded. “I watched him diligently for more than twelve months, and discovered that his career had been a most extraordinary one, and that he was in association with a man named Graham—who sometimes also called himself Ashwicke—and who was one of the most expert and ingenious forgers ever known. Graham was a continental swindler whom the police had for years been endeavouring to arrest, while the man who was my husband was known in criminal circles as ‘The Major.’ Their operations in England, Belgium, and America were on a most extensive-scale, and in the past eight years or so they have amassed a large fortune, and have succeeded in entering a very respectable circle of society. While keeping watch upon my husband’s movements, I found that he, one evening a few months ago, went down to Hounslow, and, unobserved by him, I travelled by the same train. I followed him to Whitton, and watched him meet clandestinely a lady who was one of the guests.”

“It was myself?” Beryl exclaimed, standing utterly dumbfounded by these revelations.

“Yes,” the woman went on. “I was present at your meeting, although not sufficiently near to overhear your conversation. By your manner, however, I felt confident that you were lovers, and then a fiendish suggestion—one that I now deeply regret—occurred to me, namely to kill you both by secret means. With that object I went to the small rustic bridge by the lake—over which I knew you must pass on your return to the house, both of you having crossed it on your way there—and upon the hand-rail I placed the poison I had prepared. I knew that if you placed your hand upon the rail the poison would at once be absorbed through the skin, and must prove fatal. My calculations were, however, incorrect, for an innocent man fell victim. Colonel Chetwode came down that path, and, unconsciously grasping the rail, received the sting of death, while you and your companion returned by a circuitous route, and did not therefore discover him.”

“And is that really the true story of the Colonel’s death?” I asked blankly.

“Yes,” she answered, her chin upon her breast. “You may denounce me. I am a murderess—a murderess?”

There was a long and awkward pause.

“And can you tell us nothing of our mysterious union and its motive?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she responded, shaking her head. “I would tell you all, if I knew, for you, like myself, have fallen victims in the hands of Tattersett and Graham—only they themselves know the truth. After the tragedy at Whitton I traced Beryl Wynd to Gloucester Square, and, still believing her to have supplanted me in my husband’s affections, called there in the guise of a dressmaker, and while your wife was absent from the room managed to write a reply to a fictitious message I had brought her from Graham. I placed the liquid upon the porcelain handle of the door on the inside, so that a person on entering would experience no ill effect, but on pulling open the door to leave would receive the full strength of the deadly vayana. This again proved ineffectual; therefore ascertaining that Graham intended to visit Atworth, I entered there and placed the terrible alkaloid on certain objects in your wife’s room—upon her waist-belt, and in the room that had been occupied by him on his previous visit, but which proved to be then occupied by yourself.”

“And that accounts for the mysterious attacks which we both experienced!” I observed, amazed at her confession.

“Yes,” she replied; “I intended to commit murder. I was unaware that Beryl was your wife, and I have committed an error which I shall regret through all my life, I can only ask your forgiveness—if you really can forgive.”

“I have not yet learnt the whole facts—the motive of our marriage,” I answered. “Can you direct us to either of the men?”

She paused. Then at last answered, “Graham, or the man you know as Ashwicke, is here in this house; he called upon me by appointment this afternoon. If you so desire, I will tell my servant to ask him in.”

“But before doing so,” cried Beryl, excitedly, “let me first explain my own position! I, too, am not altogether blameless. The story of my parentage, as I have given it to you, Richard, is a fictitious one. I never knew my parents. My earliest recollections were of the Convent of the Sacré Coeur at Brunoy, near Paris, where I spent fourteen years, having as companion, during the latter seven years, Nora Findlay, the daughter of a Scotch ironmaster. Of my own parents the Sisters declared they knew nothing, and as I grew up they constantly tried to persuade me to take the veil. Nora, my best friend, left the convent, returned to England, and two years afterwards married Sir Henry, whereupon she generously offered me a place in her house as companion. She is no relation, but, knowing my susceptibilities, and in order that I should not be looked upon as a paid companion, she gave out that we were cousins—hence I was accepted as such everywhere.

“With Nora I had a pleasant, careless life, until about two years ago I met the Major, unknown to Nora, and afterwards became on friendly terms with a young man, an officer in the guards, who was his friend. Tattersett won a large sum from him at cards; and then I saw, to my dismay, that he had been attracted only by the mild flirtation I had carried on with him, and that he had played in order to please me. The Major increased my dismay by telling me that this young man was the son of a certain woman who was his bitterest enemy—the Italian woman called La Gioia—and that she would seek a terrible revenge upon us both. This was to frighten me. My life having been spent in the convent, I knew very little of the ways of the world, yet I soon saw sufficient of both to know that Tattersett was an expert forger, and that his accomplice Graham was a clever continental thief whom the police had long been wanting. How I called at the house in Queen’s-gate Gardens, and afterwards lost control over my own actions, I have already explained. The motive of our marriage is an absolute enigma.”

She stood before me white-faced and rigid.

“It is fortunate that Graham is here. Shall we seek the truth from him?” I asked.

“Yes,” she responded. “Demand from him the reason of our mysterious union.”

La Gioia touched the bell, gave an order to the servant, and, after a few moments of dead silence, Graham stood in the doorway.