CHAPTER XVII DESCRIBES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

At the outlying suburb of San Jacopo the street-lamps began, and tearing open the strange note, I found it to contain some lines penned in a rather uneducated hand.

As the coachman was driving at a good pace, I had some difficulty in deciphering the words by the light of the street-lamps as their rays flashed in, and as rapidly disappeared. The words I read, however, were decidedly curious. Written in Italian, rather faintly, be it said, the note ran as follows:

"The bearer will give you this in strictest secrecy. Do not return on board the yacht, but first call at Number 12, Via Magenta, ground floor, where you will meet a friend whose interests are identical with your own. Dismiss your carriage near the port, and take a cab to the address indicated. Come, without fear, and without delay."

The invitation was, to say the least of it, a peculiar one. Although a woman, I am not naturally timid, especially in Italy, where I know the language, and know the peculiarities of the people. My first feelings, however, were those of suspicion. Why could not the writer have approached me openly, without taking the elaborate precaution of sending me the missive by the hand of the dazio guard? Again, I was not acquainted with the Via Magenta, and suspected it to be in a low quarter of the city. There are several parts of Leghorn into which a woman would certainly not care to venture after dark.

The suggestion that I should not return to the yacht read to me as a warning, especially in the light of the knowledge I had gained of old Keppel's intentions. Could it be possible that it was intended that the Vispera should sail before morning and go straight to her doom?

I sat back in the carriage, thinking it all over. Finally, I came to the conclusion that the writer of the letter, whoever he was, must, like myself, be aware of the truth. Our interests, he declared, were identical. That statement was in itself interesting, and filled me with a curiosity which increased as I reflected. I glanced again at the sheet of common notepaper in my hand, and my suspicions were again aroused by the fact that there was no signature. The note was anonymous, and no one, especially a woman, has any sympathy with anonymity.

Should I disregard the warning, cast the letter out of the carriage window, and return on board; or should I act according to its instructions?

I was engaged in a very serious and difficult inquiry, which had baffled experienced police officials, be it remembered. In every direction I scented suspicion, now that the old millionaire, the man in whose integrity I had so firmly believed, was proved to be the author of a foul and dastardly crime. The whole affair was as startling as it was incomprehensible. The enigma was complete.

Ever since the time when I had been so cleverly tricked by the pseudo-detectives in Nice, I had been on the alert to discover some clue which might lead me to a knowledge of the manner in which poor Reggie had met with his death. That there was a deep-laid conspiracy on foot was manifest, but in what direction to seek for an explanation, I knew not. The mystery of this strange affair unnerved me.

The city of Leghorn is bisected by the Via Grande, its principal street, which runs from the great Piazza Carlo Alberto in a straight line down to the port. At the bottom of this thoroughfare I stopped the brougham, alighted, and sent the conveyance back to Ardenza. The steps at which I knew the yacht's boat would be awaiting me were a considerable distance away, and I had no fear of detection by any person who knew me. At that hour all my fellow-guests would undoubtedly be back on board; therefore if I kept the strange appointment, I might return to the yacht within an hour, and no one need be the wiser.

From the open casement of one of the high, not over-clean houses facing the port, where boatmen and dock-labourers lived, sounded the sweet twanging of a mandoline, while a voice sang an old Tuscan serenade:

"O! Nina mia—o giovinetta,
Lunica speme—delta mia vita;
Deh! perchè vivi—così soletta
In questa tetra—stanza romita?
                                    Vieni, vieni!
    Vieni, deh! vieni a me d'accanto.
    Io t'amo tauto, io t'amo tanto!"

I listened, and as those words of passionate love fell upon my ears I tried to shut them out. They recalled too vividly the days when I myself had been wooed by a man whom I loved.

The writer of the mysterious note had declared our interests to be mutual. This fact aroused my interest, causing me, in my eagerness to learn the truth, to disregard my usual caution. Hailing one of the small open cabs which are characteristic of every Italian town, I gave the man the address mentioned in the letter.

Contrary to my expectations, the Via Magenta proved to be one of the principal streets down which the electric tramway passed, and Number 12 was, I found, a large, old palace of six stories, once the residence of some count or marquis, but now, as a result following the ruin of its original owners, it was evidently let out in flats. The big doors, ponderous and iron-studded, as they nearly always are in Italy—a relic of those turbulent days when every palazzo was a miniature fortress—were closed when I alighted; but finding a row of bells, I rang the one marked "terreno" (ground floor), whereupon the door was unbolted by the occupant of the apartment, and I immediately found myself just inside a huge, dark hall, where the noise made by me in stumbling over a step echoed loudly. There is always something uncanny in the way an Italian door is opened at night by an unseen hand, for one naturally expects to see a person standing behind it. As a matter of fact, the opening is effected by a mechanical contrivance which can be operated at will in any of the apartments. Thus the occupants remain undisturbed until the visitor arrives at their door.

I had turned, and was about to ask the cabman to give me some wax vestas in order that I might find my way, when a door opened at the further end of the hall, and against the light from within I saw the silhouette of a young Italian girl about fifteen years old. She came forward, looking at me inquiringly, and then, as though she recognised my features from a description that had been given her, she exclaimed:

"It is the Signorina Rosselli! Pass, signorina, pass!" and she led the way into the apartment, closing the door behind her. The place was spacious, sparely furnished, but not particularly clean. The cheap paraffin lamp upon the table of the small room at the back of the house to which I was conducted was smoking, blackening the glass, and filling the place with suffocating fumes. The stone floor of the apartment was without carpet, and all the furniture it contained was a cheap table, two or three old rush-bottomed chairs, and a tall linen-press of a bygone day. There was a damp, earthy smell, which did not help to make the place any more inviting. Indeed, I had scarcely set foot in it before I became seized with suspicion and regretted that I had come.

The girl, a tall, black-eyed Livornese, who wore a bodice of cream-coloured cotton and a stuff skirt of dark crimson, was evidently a serving-maid, for she drew forward one of the chairs, inviting me to be seated.

"I presume I am expected here?" I inquired in Italian.

"Si, signorina," was the girl's reply, "the signore will be with you in a moment. Please be seated. I will tell him."

She disappeared, closing the door after her.

The whole affair was mysterious. Grim and forbidding by day, an old Italian palazzo at night never inspires the stranger with confidence. Its great chambers are full of ghosts of the past, and one's imagination quickly conjures up visions of those old burghers who were such good haters; of the gay young cavaliers who rode to a joust or a skirmish with equal nonchalance; and of those richly-clad dames who caused all the great tragedies that were enacted within these dark, prison-like walls.

Little time was, however, allowed me for reflection, for almost immediately the door opened, and there entered a dwarfed and ugly little old man, with a queer wizened face, deeply wrinkled, and a grey beard, bushy and untrimmed. His appearance was so comical that I could scarcely suppress a smile.

"Ah, signorina!" he cried, in a high-pitched, squeaky voice, "I am glad you have come. I feared that you might not get the letter, and the matter is highly important."

"You are the writer of the letter?" I suggested.

"Ah, no, signorina," the old fellow squeaked. "Unfortunately, I cannot write—I can only make a cross." He spoke Italian, with a strong southern accent, and struck me as being of the lower class. To me it was strange that the queer old fellow should inhabit part of a palace of that description. "I did not write the letter," he went on, "but I wished to speak with you upon an important matter."

"I am all attention," I responded. "Permit me to mention that I have a cab waiting outside, and my time is precious."

"You are anxious to return on board the yacht, eh?" he grunted, with a strange expression upon his puckered face.

"I must join my friends within an hour," I said.

"Your friends?" he echoed, with strange emphasis upon the final word. "You are best apart from such as they."

"Why?" I inquired, surprised at the old fellow's sudden declaration. He was evidently aware of some fact which it was desirable that I should know.

"There are strong reasons why the signorina should not return on board," he declared, with a mysterious air.

"As well as reasons why I should not number the Signor Keppel and his guests among my friends?" I asked.

"The signorina guesses right," he answered, with a sinister smile.

"Then I presume that I may be permitted to know those reasons?" I suggested. "One cannot well break off a friendship without some motive."

"Your own safety is sufficient motive, surely?" he argued.

"I am not in fear, and as far as I am aware there is no danger," I declared, endeavouring to show a bold front, and hoping that the old fellow would soon become more explicit. He apparently alluded to the conspiracy to blow up the yacht in order to hide old Keppel's secret.

"But our interests are mutual," he said, glancing at me sharply.

"How?"

"You are seeking to elucidate a mystery. So am I. You are endeavouring to discover the person who assassinated the young Signor Inglese at the Grand Hotel at Nizza. So am I."

"You!" I cried in surprise. "For what reason are you interesting yourself in the matter?"

"I have a motive—a very strong one," he answered. "We ought to unite our efforts with a view to solving the mystery."

"The police have already failed," I remarked, inwardly ridiculing the idea that any assistance could be rendered by the queer old fellow living there in that dismal and silent palazzo. Surely a man with such a grotesque countenance could never act the amateur detective with success!

"The police!" he sneered, when I mentioned them. "They are useless. They act by rule, and here, in Italy, may be bribed with a handful of cigars. The police! They are not worth the value of a dried fig, the whole of them."

"Then you favour independent effort, such as I myself am making?"

"Most certainly," croaked the old fellow. "It may appear strange to you that, working in the same direction as yourself, I am aware of all you have already done."

"I don't understand," I exclaimed in surprise.

"I mean that I have been watching, just as you have. I know all that has happened—everything. That is why we should combine our efforts."

"But what can you know of my inquiries?" I exclaimed dubiously. "We have never met before."

"No, signorina, that is true," he laughed. "And we should not have met now, were it not for the fact that events have occurred to render our meeting necessary. To show you that I am aware of the efforts you have already made, I will describe to you how the money stolen from the young Inglese was returned to you, and then cunningly secured by trickery. I will tell you, too, of certain matters which occurred in Nice, and which you, no doubt, believe are only known to yourself."

And then he went on to describe to me events and conversations which had taken place in Nice, in such detail as to make it plain that the old fellow had been well acquainted with my movements, and knew all the efforts I had made to solve the tantalising problem.

He spoke of Ernest, too, with a strange familiarity, which made me believe that they had been acquainted. He showed himself to be intimate with the doings of the man I loved, knowing both his past movements and his present whereabouts.

"He is at Aix-les-Bains," he said, in reply to my question. "At the 'Hotel d'Europe.'"

"And she?"

"The signorina pains herself unnecessarily," the old man responded, with a slight touch of sympathy in his voice. "But if she desires to know, the person to whom she refers was, perhaps is still, at Aix—'Hotel Lamartine.'"

"He has gone there to play, I suppose?"

"Yes. She assists him, and has wonderful luck, just as she had at Monte Carlo. You remember?"

"Yes," I responded. "But were you actually there?"

He smiled, and from his face I knew that he also had witnessed that woman's fortune.

"And now?" I asked.

"From reports that have reached me, it seems that her luck has not deserted her. They made a coup at baccarat three nights ago, and won eighty thousand francs between them."

My teeth met and clenched themselves hard. The woman who had stolen my love held Ernest Cameron in her toils. He believed that her presence at the tables brought him good fortune. And yet I loved him so—better than life! The old man's words brought to my mind a flood of recollections belonging to the idyllic days of a love now dead.

Ah! if we had married, I would have been a much better woman, I reflected bitterly. To love is such a very different thing from a desire to be beloved. To love is woman's nature—to be beloved is the consequence of her having properly exercised and controlled that nature. To love is woman's duty—to be beloved is her reward.

But where was my reward?