Chapter Seventeen. Smayle’s Dilemma.

Tristram’s sinewy fingers tightened upon the slender white throat of the helpless woman until her breath was crushed from her, her face became crimson, and in her wild, starting eyes was a ghastly expression of suffering and despair.

“Mercy!” she managed to gasp with difficulty. “Ah, no! Let me go! let me go!”

“Your evil tongue can ruin me. But you shall not!” he cried in a frenzy of anger, his face suffused by a fierce, murderous passion. “By Heaven, you shall die!”

“If—if you kill me,” she shrieked, “you will suffer; for even though I’m outcast, there is a law here, in your England, to deal with murderers.”

“Outcast!” he echoed wildly, with an imprecation. “Yes; curse you! Is there any wonder that you are hounded out of Italy, after all that has occurred? Is there any wonder, after what took place in Tuscany, that I now hold you within my hands, eager to extinguish the last remaining spark of your life?”

“You’re a brute!” she cried in a hoarse, gurgling voice. “Release me! I—I can’t breathe!”

“No, by Heaven, you shall die!” he declared, his strong, muscular hands trembling with uncurbed passion. “Your infernal tongue shall utter no more foul slanders, for to-night, now—this moment—I’ll silence you!” She uttered a low, agonised cry, then, fainting, panting, breathless, sank upon her knees, unable any longer to resist the frightful pressure upon her throat. At that instant, however, Smayle, hearing an unusual noise, dashed in, and, taking in the situation at a glance, seized his master firmly.

“Good heavens, sir! what’s the matter?” he cried. “Why, you’re killing the lady!”

“Get out?” cried the Captain with an oath, shaking himself free, and still holding the fainting woman at his feet. “Get out quickly! Leave the house, and—and don’t come back!”

“But you’re killing her!” he cried. “See, there’s blood in her mouth!”

“Obey me this instant!” he roared. “Leave me!”

“No,” Smayle answered, “I won’t!” And, springing upon his master, he managed, after a desperate struggle, to drag his hands free of the kneeling woman’s throat and fling him back with a smothered oath. “I won’t see a woman murdered in that cowardly way,” he declared vehemently, “even if you are my master?”

“What the devil do my affairs concern you, Smayle?” Tristram demanded fiercely, glaring at his servant, and glancing at Gemma, now fallen back prostrate on the floor, her hat crushed beneath her, her fair hair escaping from its pins.

“They concern me as far as this, sir—that you shall leave this room at once. If the lady is dead, then you’ve committed murder, and I am witness of it!”

“You’d denounce me, would you?” the Captain shrieked with rage, his hands still clenched in a fierce paroxysm of anger. Then, next instant he sprang at him.

But Smayle was a slim, athletic fellow, and, like most of the genus Tommy Atkins, knew how to use his fists when occasion required. He jumped aside, nimbly evaded the blow his master aimed at him, and cleverly tripped up his adversary, so that he fell headlong to the ground, bringing down from its pedestal a pretty Neapolitan statuette, which was smashed to atoms.

Tristram quickly rose with an imprecation, but Smayle, again grappling with him, succeeded at length, after an encounter long and fierce, in flinging him out of the room, and locking the door.

Then instantly he turned towards the white-faced woman, and, kneeling beside her, endeavoured to restore her to consciousness. With his handkerchief he staunched the blood slowly trickling from the corners of her pale lips, placed a cushion beneath her head, and snatching some flowers from a bowl, sprinkled her face with the water. Her white, delicate throat was dark and discoloured where his master’s rough hands had pressed it in his violent attempt to strangle her, her dress was torn open at the neck, and her gold necklet she had worn, with its tiny enamelled medallion, lay upon the ground, broken by the sudden, frantic attack. Tenderly the soldier-servant stroked her hair, chafed her hands, and endeavoured to restore her to consciousness, but all in vain. Inert and helpless she remained while he held her head, gazing upon her admiringly, but unable to determine the best course to pursue.

The outer door banged suddenly, and he knew his master had fled.

With every appearance of one dead, Gemma lay upon the carpet where she had sunk from the cruel, murderous hands of the man who had attempted to kill her, while Smayle again rose, and obtaining some brandy from the liquor-stand, succeeded in forcing a small quantity of it down her throat.

This revived her slightly, for she opened her great clear eyes, gazing into Smayle’s with an expression of fear and wonder.

“Drink a little more of this, miss,” the man said eagerly, holding the glass to her lips, delighted to find that she was not, after all, dead as he had at first feared.

Unable to understand what he said, she nevertheless allowed him to pour a few more drops of the spirit down her dry, parched throat, but it caused her to cough violently, and she made a gesture that to take more was impossible.

For fully ten minutes she remained silent, motionless, her head lying heavily upon Smayle’s arm, breathing slowly, but each moment more regularly. The deathly pallor gradually disappeared as the blood came back to her cheeks, but the dark rings about her eyes, and the marks upon her throat, still remained as evidence how near she had been to an agonising and most terrible death.

At last Gemma again opened her eyes and uttered some words faintly, making a frantic gesture with her hands. The man who had rescued her understood that she wished to rise, and, grasping her beneath the arms, gradually lifted her into the Captain’s great leather-covered armchair, in which she reclined, a frail, beautiful figure, with eyes half closed and breast panting violently after the exertion.

Then again she closed her eyes, her tiny hands, cold and feeble, trembled, and in a few minutes her regular breathing made it apparent to the Captain’s man that, exhausted, she had sunk into a deep and peaceful sleep.

He left her side, and creeping from the room noiselessly, searched all the other apartments. His master had gone. He had taken with him his two travelling-bags—a sign that he had set out upon a long journey. As far as Constantinople, one bag always sufficed; to Teheran he always took both. The fact that the two bags were taken made it plain that his absence would be a long one—probably some weeks, if not more.

Smayle stole back to the sitting-room, and saw that the blue official ribbon with its silver greyhound hung no longer upon its nail, and that his revolver was gone. He returned to the Captain’s bedroom, and upon the dressing-table found a ten-pound note lying open. Across its face had been scribbled hastily, in pencil, the words, “For Smayle.” Upon the floor were some scraps of paper, letters that had been hurriedly destroyed, while in the empty grate lay a piece of tinder and a half-consumed wax vesta, showing that some letters of more importance than the others had been burnt.

The man, mystified, gathered the scraps together, examined them closely and placed them in a small drawer in the dressing-table. Then putting the banknote in his pocket, exclaimed to himself—

“This is curious, and no kid. The Captain ain’t often so generous as to give me a tenner, especially when he only paid me yesterday. I wonder who the lady is? I wish I could speak to her. She’s somebody he’s met, I suppose, when abroad.”

He went to the hall, and noted what coats his master had taken, when suddenly it occurred to him that without assistance it was impossible that he could have carried them all downstairs; somebody must have helped him.

Into the small bachelor’s kitchen he passed, pondering deeply over the strange occurrence. Only an hour before, his master had arrived home from dining at the club, and putting on his well-worn velvet lounge-coat, had announced his intention of remaining at home and smoking. Smayle had asked him whether he was under orders to leave with despatches, when he had answered that it was not yet his turn, and that he expected to have a fortnight in London. Three days ago he had returned from St. Petersburg, tired, hungry, irritable, as he always was after that tedious journey. A run home from Brussels, Paris, or even Berlin, never made him short-tempered, but always when he arrived from Petersburg, Madrid, or “Constant,” he grumbled at everything; always declared that Smayle had been drinking his whisky; that the place was dirty; that the weather in London was brutal; and ten thousand a year wouldn’t repay him for the loss of nerve-power on “those infernal gridirons they call railways.”

Yet he had made a serious attempt upon the life of a strange lady who had called, and had left hurriedly with sufficient kit to last him six months.

He was reflecting deeply, wondering what he should do with the lady, when suddenly he was startled by the door-bell ringing. With military promptness he answered it, and found his master’s new acquaintance, Arnoldo Romanelli. The latter had spent several evenings at Tristram’s chambers since the night they had dined together at Bonciani’s, therefore Smayle knew him well.

“The Captain’s not at home, sir,” he answered, in reply to the visitor’s inquiry.

“Is he away?”

“He left this evening suddenly.”

“On important business, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir,” Smayle answered. Then he added, “Excuse me, sir, but you are Italian, aren’t you?”

“Yes; why?” Arnoldo asked in surprise.

Smayle hesitated, fidgeted a moment, and then answered—

“Well, sir, there’s a lady there, in the Captain’s sitting-room, and she’s not well, and she can’t speak English.”

“A lady?” cried Romanelli, suddenly interested. “Young or old?”

“Young, sir. She’s Italian, I believe. And I thought, sir, that perhaps you wouldn’t mind assisting a friend of my master’s.”

“Of course not. Take me to her at once,” he said. “Is she very ill?”

“She had a bad fainting fit,” answered the servant as he led the way to the sitting-room. She was still lying back in the chair, now quite conscious, but still pale, dishevelled, and so exhausted as to be scarcely able to move her limbs. They seemed paralysed by the excruciating torture she had undergone.

The opening of the door aroused her, and looking up, her eyes met those of the young Italian.

“You—Gemma!” he cried in profound surprise, rushing forward. “Why are you here—in London? And in Tristram’s rooms?”

She held her breath in amazement at this unexpected meeting.

“I—I called here,” she explained in a low, weak voice, “and became seized with a sudden faintness. I—I think I fell.”

“I trust you’re not hurt,” he said quickly. “You are pale and trembling. Shall I call a doctor?”

“No, no,” she answered. “In a few minutes I shall be quite right again.”

Romanelli noticed her necklet at his feet, and picked it up. Then he glanced across the room and saw the broken statuette, and his quick, dark eyes detected signs of a struggle in the disarranged hearthrug and the chairs pushed out of place.

“Merely fainting did not break this,” he said gravely, holding up the chain and picking up the tiny medallion enamelled with the picture of a dog’s head with the words beneath, “Toujours Fidèle.” The chain and its pendant were simple and old-fashioned, the one remaining link of her girlhood days at the Convent of San Paolo della Croce.

She held out her hand in silence, and the young man placed both chain and medallion in her palm. Then, with her great, pain-darkened eyes fixed upon him, she kissed the chain reverently, afterwards slipping both into her glove, and sighing.

“Gemma,” continued Romanelli, bending beside her chair, “what does this mean? Tell me. Why have you come to London?”

She shook her head.

“This man can’t speak Italian,” he explained, glancing at Smayle, who stood beside wondering. “We can talk quite freely. Come, tell me what has happened.”

“Nothing,” she assured him.

“But why are you in London? Were you not afraid?”

“Afraid?” she echoed. “Why should I be? I am just as safe here in England, as I was in Florence or Livorno.”

“Vittorina died within the first hour she set foot in London,” he observed with a grave, meaning look.

“You loved her,” she said. “You have all my sympathy, Arnoldo. Some day we shall know the truth; then those responsible for her death shall receive no mercy at our hands.”

“That chapter of my life has closed,” the young Italian said, with a touch of sorrow in his voice. “She has been murdered, but by whom we cannot yet tell.” He paused, then added, “What object had you, Gemma, in leaving Italy? And why have you come here? Surely you know that you have enemies in London—enemies as cruel, as unrelenting, as cunning as those who killed poor Vittorina.”

“I am well aware of that,” she answered, stirring uneasily in her chair, and putting up her hand to her bruised throat. “I know I have enemies. To one person, at least, my death would be welcome,” she added, remembering the fierce struggle in that room an hour before.

“Then why have you risked everything and come here? You were safer in Italy,” he said.

“I was not safer there. I am safe nowhere,” she replied. “The police have discovered some of the facts, and—”

“The police!” he gasped in alarm. “Our secret is out, then?”

“Not entirely. I was warned to leave Livorno within twenty-four hours, and advised to leave Italy altogether. Then—well, I came here.”

“With your lover, eh?”

She nodded.

“And you will marry him?” the young Italian observed slowly. “You do not fear the exposure which afterwards must come? These English are fond of looking closely into the woman’s past, you know.”

She shrugged her shoulders, answering: “My past is secret. Fortunately the one person who knows the truth dares not speak.”

“Then what I know is of no account?” he said, somewhat surprised.

She laughed.

“If you and I have ever flirted, or even exchanged foolish letters, it was long ago, when we had not the experience of the world we now have. I do not dread exposure of your knowledge of my past.”

“But this lover of yours, this Englishman—why does he believe in you so blindly?” Romanelli inquired. “Is he so utterly infatuated that he thinks you absolutely innocent of the world and its ways?”

“My affairs of the heart are of no concern to you now, Arnoldo,” she answered a trifle coquettishly.

“But if I come here to a man’s rooms, and find you in his sitting-room in a half-conscious state, trembling and afraid, with every sign of a desperate struggle in your dress and in the room, and therefore I, once your boy-lover, seek an explanation,” he said. “True, the affection between us is dead long, long ago, but remember that you and I both have interests in common, and that by uniting we may effect the overthrow of our enemies. If we do not—well, you know the fate that awaits us.”

“Yes,” she answered in a voice that sounded low and distant. “I know, alas! too well—too well!”