Chapter Twenty Eight. What! Saw in the Night.

The night mail for the Continent backed into Cannon Street for the postal-vans, and then rushed away into the wet stormy night for Dover Pier.

The journey, as far as there, proved uneventful, but as soon as I stepped out upon the rain-swept landing-stage, I saw that our crossing was to be a “dirty” one. Beneath the electric lamps brawny seamen passed in shining oil-skins, and amid the bustle and shouting I saw the neat figure of the Countess with her companion hurry across the gangway to the shelter of a private cabin, wherein she entered and closed the door, while Logan went below to get a drink, and change some money with the steward, an action which was that of the constant traveller.

Not wishing to appear too obtrusive, I remained on deck watching the mails being counted in, until the last bag had been flung into the hold, the cry “All out!” sounded, the hatches were closed, and then slowly the packet began to move out into the rough open Channel.

When Logan emerged on deck I stood back in the darkness, taking a good view of him. He was dressed with every appearance of a gentleman, but from the manner in which he paced the deck I saw that he was greatly agitated and concerned, whether of the Countess’s safety or of his own I could, of course, not determine. Neither had I any idea why the pair were fleeing from England, unless it was to escape some exposure which her ladyship knew to be imminent.

That woman was the enemy of my love; she had deceived me. Therefore the compassion I held for her had been succeeded by a fierce and unrelenting antagonism, and I intended to watch her and discover the truth.

I sat beneath the bridge under shelter from the driving rain, and hidden by the darkness, while the man Logan walked to and fro, utterly heedless of the storm. He did not go to her ladyship’s cabin to inquire after her, therefore it struck me that perhaps they might have quarrelled. In any case his anxiety was intense.

On landing at Calais he took her into the buffet, where they had hot coffee, and a few moments later were joined by a thin black-haired sallow-faced man, evidently a foreigner from the studied manner in which he bowed before her as she sat at the table of the restaurant.

Then the trio sat together in earnest consultation.

The Paris express was announced to depart, but to my surprise they took no heed. The French capital proved not to be their destination, for presently they rose and walked to the Bâle express, the wagon-lit of which they entered, the conductor apparently expecting them.

I was compelled therefore to return to the booking-office and obtain a ticket. As, however, there was but one sleeping-car I could not travel in it for fear of detection, and was therefore forced to enter an ordinary first-class carriage, with the prospect of a twelve hours’ tedious journey.

On we travelled until the dawn spread into a grey damp day, then the sun shone, it grew warmer, and I stretched myself upon the cushions and slept. To descend to get anything to eat was to invite detection; therefore I starved upon a pull from my flask and a couple of sandwiches with which I had provided myself at the Calais buffet.

From Bâle I followed them to Lucerne, and from Lucerne by the Gothard railway to Milan, where we arrived late at night, her ladyship driving alone to the Hotel Metropole, opposite the Duomo, and the two men going off in a cab in another direction.

As soon as I had watched the Countess into the Metropole I went along to the Cavour, where I quickly turned in and was very soon asleep. Milan seemed to be their destination, for at the station they had been met by a second foreigner, an Italian evidently, a short ferret-eyed little man, smoking the stump of a cigar, and after the exchange of a few words he parted from them quickly and was lost to sight.

My own idea was that he had met Logan and his friend and had told them to what address to drive. I, however, could not follow them, being bent upon watching Marigold. Next morning I sent a telegram to Keene informing him of my whereabouts, and then set myself to keep observation on the Countess’s movements.

Milan, the most noisy city of modern Italy, was parched and dusty at that season of the year, and save for a few German tourists the hotels seemed empty. There are, of course, visitors from all corners of the earth at all seasons of the year to see the wonders of the cathedral, but to the man who knows his Italy, and who loves it, there is something so incongruous, so ugly, so utterly rasping upon the nerves in Milan that it is decidedly a city to get away from. The place bears the impress of all that is bad in Italian art of to-day, combined with all the worst features of that complex life which is known as Modern Italy.

Opposite the hotel stood the great stucco arcade, the Gallery of Victor Emmanuel, one of the greatest, if not actually the greatest, in Europe, and about eleven o’clock her ladyship emerged from her hotel alone and wandered through the arcade looking into the shop windows, some of those establishments being the best and most expensive in Italy.

She little dreamed of my presence as I followed her. Previously I had bought a grey felt hat of Italian shape in order that my English “bowler” should not be conspicuous, and with my watchful eyes upon her I sauntered on, wondering why she was waiting. She returned to the hotel to lunch, and in the afternoon went for a drive around the bastions, which, planted with limes now, form the passeggiata of the prosperous Milanese.

It surprised me that Logan and his companion did not return to her, and I regretted that I had not ascertained whither they had gone. At seven o’clock that evening, however, she went alone to the large restaurant in the Galleria known as Biffi’s, and entering found the three men seated at table expecting her. Each greeted her with deep deference, then reseated themselves, and she dined with them.

From where I sat, engrossed in my Tribuna—the top of my head concealed by my new grey hat—I could see that now and then the conversation was of a confidential character, and I also noticed certain strange meaning looks exchanged between the men when the woman’s attention was otherwise engaged.

The three men were certainly not the kind of persons one would have expected as associates of a woman of the Countess of Stanchester’s wealth and social distinction. Her beauty, however, was, I saw, everywhere remarked, even in that foreign café.

“Una bellissima donna!” remarked a man seated near to me to his companion, as he sipped his vermouth and seltzer. “English, I believe. I wonder what those thieves want with her? She evidently don’t know their character, or she and the Englishman wouldn’t be seen with them here, in a public restaurant!”

I was quickly on the alert. These men, probably petty officials employed in the Municipal Offices, had recognised the sallow-faced man who had met Logan at Calais, and his companion. I recollected the curious incident at Hayes’s Farm, and the fact that two foreigners had been of the mysterious party who had lived in concealment there. Were they, I wondered, these self-same men. They were Italians, no doubt, for had they not read the Avanti and the Secolo and other journals, some of which they had left behind on their sudden flight?

Fortunately one of the Continental languages with which I was acquainted was Italian; therefore I turned to the two men seated close to me, and raising my hat politely explained that I had overheard their remarks, and that as the lady and gentleman were my friends I would esteem it a favour if they would give me some further information regarding the two men seated with them at table.

“Why do you wish to know?” inquired the man who had made the remark that had so attracted my attention.

“Well, because my English friends are negotiating some financial business with them,” I explained.

“Oh!” he smiled. “Well then, you can tell your friends that those two men are well-known in Milan, and especially in this café, as knights of industry—persons who live by their wits. I haven’t see them here for months, and believed that they’d fallen into the hands of the law. But it seems that they’re flourishing still.”

“What is known against them?” I asked in Italian. “Are you aware of their names?”

“Yes,” was his reply. “I may as well tell you that I am a delegato of police myself, and I happen to know those two very interesting gentlemen. The tall man is Tito Belotto, a Roman, and the other Bernardo Ostini, a Lucchese. And the name of the beautiful Englishwoman? Who is she?”

“She is from London—a Mrs Price,” I answered, pronouncing the first name that came into my head, for I was by no means anxious that this detective should know her real name.

“Well,” he remarked, “you can warn her to have nothing to do with them, otherwise she must suffer, both in reputation as well as in pocket,” he smiled, and then, having finished his vermouth, he rose with his companion and left.

Then the sallow-faced fellow who had met them at Calais was Tito Belotto, an adventurer! And yet as he sat there in evening dress, smoking his cigar and chatting affably with the handsome Englishwoman, his outward appearance was that of a somewhat superior man. In his shirt-front there shone a small diamond of very good water, and on his finger was another gem that caught the electric light and flashed its radiance towards me.

He had been relating some humorous anecdote to her ladyship, who was laughing heartily at it. Evidently she was in a good-humour, just as these men wished her to be. Belotto, I noticed, paid for the dinner, and then all four walked down the arcade into the Piazza where they entered a closed cab and were driven off.

My own idea is that they were going to a theatre, but as I followed them in another conveyance I quickly found that we were travelling in an opposite direction, namely up the broad Corso Venezia and out by the city gate into that suburb that lies beyond the ancient fortifications. Outside the town the streets are not well-lighted, and the quarter is not one of the most aristocratic. Most of the houses were huge blocks of flats as is usual in Italian cities, and it struck me that they were mostly occupied by labourers. Even at that hour of the night the air seemed close, and a strong odour of garlic permeated everything.

The cab in which the four were riding turned at last into a dark deserted street of high prison-like houses and pulled up, when instantly I ordered my man to stop, jumped out, paid him, and secreted myself in a neighbouring doorway before the first man who alighted could detect my presence.

From the house where they had stopped a man came forth, carrying a lantern, by the light of which he conducted them into that ponderous house of darkness.

The cab then drove off, leaving me alone in the dark dismal street. The house they had entered was a big inartistic place apparently newly-built, for it stood slightly apart from the other buildings, and behind it was a waste plot of ground. From the other tenements in the vicinity came the cries of children, the strumming of a mandoline, a woman’s song, and a man’s voice raised in angry altercation—that babel of noises that one hears at night in every crowded street of an Italian town, and more especially in that noisiest of European cities—Milan.

Why, I wondered, had they gone there? That Marigold was unacquainted with the place, and that she was not altogether confident in the assurances of her conductors, was shown to me by the cautious manner in which she followed the man with the lantern. Besides, I saw distinctly that the two Italians, following her, nudged each other.

Not a light showed in any single window of the place, for at most of them the wooden sun-shutters were closed, as is the Italian habit at night. In one part of the building, however, the windows were devoid of glass, from which I concluded that the place was not yet completely finished. And then it occurred to me that the man with the lantern might be its first occupant.

The minutes lengthened into hours, but I still kept my patient silent vigil. The noises in the other houses around died down, until all was hushed in sleep. I emerged from the doorway and strolled backwards and forwards in the dark and dismal roadway. The closed door of the house where the Countess had been taken was freshly painted, but beyond that I could gather nothing from its exterior.

I looked at my watch and found that it was half-past two. Then I sat down upon a heap of stones close by, waiting for the dawn, and thinking always of Lolita.

I suppose I had been there some twenty minutes or so, when of a sudden I heard a shrill whistle which, as far as I could judge, proceeded from one of the shuttered windows of the unfinished house.

Three times was the whistle blown, when a few moments later I heard the rattle of wheels, and the same cab that had conveyed them there drew up again before the door.

There were no lights on it, however, neither did any light show when the door of the house was opened.

But as I watched I saw something which caused my eyes to start out of my head in astonishment, for the dim light was just sufficient for me to discern two men emerging from the mysterious place, carrying between them to the cab the inanimate form of a woman covered with a dark cloth.

The woman’s arm swung helplessly to the ground as they carried her, and I knew by their suspicious manners, and their hushed whispers, that she was dead.