Chapter Sixteen. Antonio Speaks Plainly.

“You, Antonio!” I gasped, staring at the fellow who, dressed in a dark grey suit and soft black felt hat, presented an appearance of ultra-respectability.

“Yes, signore, I am very surprised to find you here—in Rome,” he replied.

“Come,” I said abruptly, “tell me what has occurred. Why did you leave London so hurriedly?”

“I had some family affairs to attend to,” he answered. “I had to go to my home at Lucca to arrange for the future of my two nephews whose father is just dead. Pietro joined me there.”

“And you were joined also by Mr Kirk?” I said.

“Ah, no, signore!” protested the thin-faced Italian with an emphatic gesture. “I have not seen him since I left London.”

“Are you quite certain of that, Antonio?” I asked slowly, in disbelief, as I looked straight into his face.

“Quite. I know that he came abroad, but have no idea of his present whereabouts.”

“Now tell me, Antonio,” I urged, “who and what is Mr Kirk?”

The Italian shrugged his shoulders, answering:

“Ah, signore, you had better not ask. He is a mystery to me—as to you, and as he was to my poor master.”

“He killed your master—eh?” I suggested. “Now tell me the truth—once and for all.”

“I do not know,” was his quick reply, with a strange flash in his dark eyes. “If he did, then I have no knowledge of it. I slept on the top floor, and heard nothing.”

“Who was the man who went to Edinburgh on the night of the tragedy?”

“Ah! Dio mio! Do not reopen all that puzzle!” he protested. “I am just as mystified as you yourself, signore.”

I looked straight in the man’s face, wondering if he were speaking the truth. His hard, deep-lined countenance was difficult to read. The Italian is such a born diplomatist that his face seldom betrays his thoughts. He can smile upon you sweetly, even though behind his back he grips a dagger ready to strike you to the heart. And so old Antonio’s face was sphinx-like, as all his race.

“You saw Leonard Langton at Calais,” I remarked.

“He told you that!” gasped the dead man’s servant, with a start. “What did he say of me?”

“Nothing, except what was good. He told me that you were a trusted servant of the Professor.”

“Ah, my poor, dear master!” echoed the man, his face turned thoughtfully away towards the afterglow. “If I knew—ah, Madonna mia, if I only knew the truth!”

“You suspect Kirk?” I suggested. “Why not tell me more?”

“I suspect him no more than I suspect others,” was his calm reply. “Be certain, signore, that there is much more behind that terrible affair than you suspect. There was some strong motive for my poor master’s death, depend upon it! But,” he asked, “where did you meet the Signor Langton?”

Briefly I related the circumstances of Kirk’s presence in the house, his escape, and the discovery I afterwards made in the laboratory.

“You actually found the evidences of the crime had been destroyed!” cried the man. Yet my sharp vigilance detected that beneath his surprise he breathed more freely when I announced the fact that the body of the Professor was no longer existent.

“Yes,” I said, after a slight pause, during which my eyes were fixed upon his. “Destroyed—and by Kershaw Kirk, whom I found alone there, with the furnace burning.”

The Italian shook his head blankly. Whether he held suspicion of Kirk or not I was unable to determine. They had been friends. That I well knew. But to me it appeared as though they had met in secret after the tragedy, and had quarrelled.

I told the man nothing of my journey to Scotland or of the puzzling discoveries I had made; but in reply to his repeated questioning as to why I was in Rome I explained that I was in search of my wife, telling him of the unaccountable manner in which she had been called away from London by means of the forged telegram.

“And you say that the signora knew nothing of the affair at Sussex Place?”

“Nothing, Antonio. It was not a matter to mention to a woman.”

“You suspect Kirk, of course, because his description is very like the man described as being with her in Florence. What motive could he have in enticing her away from you?”

“A sinister one, without a doubt,” I said.

“But, Antonio, I beg of you to tell me more concerning that man Kirk. You have known him for a long time—eh?”

“Four years, perhaps. He was a frequent visitor at the Professor’s, but young Langton hated him. I once overheard Miss Ethelwynn’s lover telling her father some extraordinary story concerning Kirk. But the Professor declined to listen; he trusted his friend implicitly.”

“And foolishly so,” I remarked.

“Very, for since that I gained knowledge that Kirk, rather than being my master’s friend, was his bitterest enemy. Miss Ethelwynn was the first to discover it. She has been devoted to her father ever since the death of the poor signora.”

“But how do you account for that remarkable occurrence behind those locked doors?” I asked, as we stood there in the corner, with the gay chatter of the society of Rome about us; an incongruous situation, surely. “What is your theory?”

“Ah, signore, I have none,” he declared emphatically. “How can I have? It is a complete mystery.”

“Yes; one equally extraordinary is the fact that Miss Ethelwynn, who was seen by us dead and cold, is yet still alive.”

“Alive!” he gasped, with a quick start which showed me that his surprise was genuine. “I—I really cannot believe you, Signor Holford! What proof have you? Why, both you and Kirk declared that she was dead!”

“The proof I have is quite conclusive. Leonard Langton spoke to her on the telephone to Broadstairs, and he is now down there with her.”

“Impossible, signore!” declared the man, shaking his head dubiously.

“When did you last see her?”

“She was lying on the couch in the dining-room, as you saw, but at Kirk’s orders she was removed from the house in a four-wheeled cab. I explained to the cabman that she was unwell, as she had unfortunately taken too much wine. Some man—a friend of Kirk’s—went with her.”

“And what was their destination?” I demanded.

“Ah, signore, I do not know.”

“Now, Antonio, please do not lie,” I said reproachfully. “You know quite well that your master’s daughter was removed to a certain house in Foley Street, Tottenham Court Road.”

“Why,” he exclaimed, turning slightly pale, and staring at me, “how did you know that?”

I laughed, refusing to satisfy his curiosity. In his excitement his accent had become more marked.

“Well,” he said at last, “what does it matter if the signorina is still alive, as you say? For my own part, I refuse to believe it until I see her in the flesh with my own eyes.”

“Well,” I remarked, “all this is beside the mark, Antonio. I have understood from everyone that you were the devoted and trusted servant of Professor Greer, therefore you surely, as a man of honour, should endeavour to assist in clearing up the mystery, and bringing the real assassin to justice.”

The man sighed, saying:

“I fear, signore, that will never be accomplished. The mystery has ramifications so wide that one cannot untangle its threads. But,” he added, after a slight pause, “would you object to telling me how you first became acquainted with Signor Kirk?”

Deeming it best to humour this man, who undoubtedly possessed certain secret knowledge, I briefly described the means by which Kirk had sought my friendship. And as I did so, I could see the slight smile at the corner of his tightened lips, a smile of satisfaction, it seemed, at the ingenious manner in which I had been misled by his friend.

“Then he brought you to Sussex Place on purpose to show you the dead body of my master?”

“He did. I had no desire to be mixed up in any such affair, only he begged me to stand his friend, at the same time protesting his innocence.”

“His innocence!” exclaimed the Italian fiercely between his clenched teeth.

“You believe him guilty, then?” I cried, quick to notice his lapse of attitude.

“Ah, no, signore,” he responded, recovering himself the next second, a bland smile overspreading his dark, complex countenance. “You misunderstand me; I suspect nobody.”

“But you had a more intimate knowledge of the household, and of the Professor’s friends, than anyone else. Therefore you, surely, have your own suspicions?”

“No; until one point of the mystery, which has apparently never occurred to you, has been cleared up, both you and I can only remain in ignorance, as we are at present.”

“Why not be quite frank with me, Antonio?” I urged. “I do not believe you are your master’s assassin; I will never believe that! But you are not open with me. Put yourself in my place. I have been entrapped by Kirk into a network of mystery and tragedy, and have lost my wife, who, I fear, is in the hands of conspirators. I have not been to the police, because Kirk urged me not to seek their aid. So—”

“No, signore,” he interrupted quickly, “do not tell the police anything. It would be injudicious—fatal!”

“Ah!” I cried, “then you are acting in conjunction with Kirk? You, too, are trying to mislead me!”

“I am not, signore,” he protested. “On the tomb of my mother,” he declared, making use of the common Italian oath, “I am only acting in your interests. The disappearance of your signora adds mystery to the affair.”

“What do you suggest as my next move? If I find Mabel, I care nothing. The tragic affair may remain a mystery for ever. I leave it to others to discover who killed Professor Greer.”

“You actually mean that, signore?” he cried. “You would really refrain from seeking further, providing you rediscover your wife?”

I was silent a few seconds. His eagerness was sufficient admission of a guilty conscience.

“Yes,” I said. “What matter the affairs of others, so long as the wife I love is innocent and at my side? She is the victim of a plot from which I must rescue her.”

The Italian gazed again away across the roofs of the Eternal City, now growing more indistinct in the gathering mists.

“I fear, Signor Holford,” he at last exclaimed with a sigh, “that you have a very difficult task before you. You are evidently in ignorance of certain curious facts.”

“Concerning what?”

“Concerning your wife.”

“You would cast a slur upon her good name?” I cried excitedly, my anger rising.

“Not at all,” was his calm, polite response, his lips parted in a pleasant smile. “You asked me to assist you, and I was about to give you advice—that is, provided that you have told me the truth.”

“About what?”

“About Miss Ethelwynn—that she still lives.”

“Of that there is no doubt,” I said.

“And if you found your signora alive and well, you would undertake to make no further inquiry?” he repeated, with undue eagerness.

“Ah! You wish to tie me down to that?” I cried. “You do so because you and your friends are in fear. You realise your own peril—eh?”

“No,” declared the man at my side; “you still entirely misunderstand me. You are an Englishman, and you mistrust me merely because I am a foreigner. It is a prejudice all you English have, more or less.”

“I entertain no prejudice,” I declared hotly. “But to tell you the truth, Antonio, I am tired of all this mystery, and now that Kirk and his friends have alienated me from my wife, I intend to take action.”

“In what manner?” he asked calmly.

“I shall go to the Questore here, in Rome, and tell the truth. I happen to know him personally.”

“And you will mention my name!” he gasped, well knowing probably the drastic measures adopted by the police of his own country.

“I shall not be able to avoid mentioning it,” I responded, with a smile.

“Bene!” he answered, in a hard, hoarse voice. “And if you did—well, signore, I can promise that you would never again see your signora alive. Go to the Questore now! Tell him all you know! Apply for my arrest! And then wait the disaster that must fall upon you, and upon your missing wife. An unseen hand struck Professor Greer—an unseen hand will most assuredly strike you, as swiftly, as unerringly.” And then facing me defiantly, a grin upon his sinister face, the fellow added: “Silence, signore, is your only guarantee of safety—I assure you!”