"Well, really it is a bolt-hole used by those who wish to evade our very astute police. If one conforms to the rules of Signora Ravecca and her husband, then one is quite safe and most comfortable."
Hugh realized that he was in a hiding-place used by thieves. A little later he knew that the ugly old woman"s husband paid toll to a certain _delegato_ of police, hence their house was never searched. While the criminal was in those shabby rooms he was immune from arrest. The place was, indeed, one of many hundreds scattered over Europe, asylums known to the international thief as places ever open so long as they can pay for their board and lodging and their contribution towards the police bribes.
A few moments later the ugly, uncouth man who had brought him from Monte Carlo lit a cigarette, and wishing the old woman a merry "addio" left and descended the stairs.
The signora then showed Hugh to his room, a small, dispiriting and not overclean little chamber which looked out upon the backs of the adjoining houses, all of which were high and inartistic. Above, however, was a narrow strip of brilliantly blue sunlit sky.
A quarter of an hour later he made the acquaintance of the woman"s husband, a brown-faced, sinister-looking individual whose black bushy eyebrows met, and who greeted the young Englishman familiarly in atrocious French, offering him a gla.s.s of red wine from a big rush-covered flask.
"We only had word of your coming late last night," the man said. "You had already started from Monte Carlo, and we wondered if you would get past the frontier all right."
"Yes," replied Hugh, sipping the wine out of courtesy. "We got out of France quite safely. But tell me, who made all these arrangements for me?"
"Why, Il Pa.s.sero, of course," replied the man, whose wife addressed him affectionately as Beppo.
"Who is Il Pa.s.sero, pray?"
"Well, you know him surely. Il Pa.s.sero, or The Sparrow. We call him so because he is always flitting about Europe, and always elusive."
"The police want him, I suppose."
"I should rather think they do. They have been searching for him for these past five years, but he always dodges them, first in France, then here, then in Spain, and then in England."
"But what is this mysterious and unknown friend of mine?"
"Il Pa.s.sero is the chief of the most daring of all the gangs of international thieves. We all work at his direction."
"But how did he know of my danger?" asked Hugh, mystified and dismayed.
"Il Pa.s.sero knows many strange things," he replied with a grin. "It is his business to know them. And besides, he has some friends in the police--persons who never suspect him."
"What nationality is he?"
The man Beppo shrugged his shoulders.
"He is not Italian," he replied. "Yet he speaks the _lingua Toscano_ perfectly and French and English and _Tedesco_. He might be Belgian or German, or even English. n.o.body knows his true nationality."
"And the man who brought me here?"
"Ah! that was Paolo, Il Pa.s.sero"s chauffeur--a merry fellow--eh?"
"Remarkable," laughed Hugh. "But I cannot see why The Sparrow has taken such a paternal interest in me," he added.
"He no doubt has, for he has, apparently, arranged for your safe return to England."
"You know him, of course. What manner of man is he?"
"A signore--a great signore," replied Beppo. "He is rich, and is often on the Riviera in winter. He"s probably there now. n.o.body suspects him.
He is often in England, too. I believe he has a house in London. During the war he worked for the French Secret Service under the name of Monsieur Franqueville, and the French Government never suspected that they actually had in their employ the famous Pa.s.sero for whom the Surete were looking everywhere."
"You have no idea where he lives in London?"
"I was once told that he had a big house somewhere in what you call the West End--somewhere near Piccadilly. I have, however, only seen him once. About eighteen months ago he was hard pressed by the police and took refuge here for two nights, till Paolo called for him in his fine car and he pa.s.sed out of Italy as a Swiss hotel-proprietor."
"Then he is head of a gang--is he?"
"Yes," was the man"s reply. "He is marvellous, and has indeed well earned his sobriquet "Il Pa.s.sero.""
A sudden thought flitted through Hugh"s mind.
"I suppose he is a friend of Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo?"
"Ah, signore, I do not know. Il Pa.s.sero had many friends. He is rich, prosperous, well-dressed, and has influential friends in France, in Italy and in England who never suspect him to be the notorious king of the thieves."
"Now, tell me," urged young Henfrey. "What do you know concerning Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo?"
The Italian looked at him strangely.
"Nothing," he replied, still speaking bad French.
"You are not speaking the truth."
"Why should I tell it to you? I do not know you!" was the quick retort.
"But you are harbouring me."
"At the orders of Il Pa.s.sero."
"You surely can tell me what you know of Mademoiselle," Hugh persisted after a brief pause. "We are mutually her friends. The attempt to kill her is outrageous, and I, for one, intend to do all I can to trace and punish the culprit."
"They say that you shot her."
"Well--you know that I did not," Henfrey said. "Have you yourself ever met Mademoiselle?"
"I have seen her. She was living for a time at Santa Margherita last year. I had a friend of hers living here with me and I went to her with a message. She is a very charming lady."
"And a friend of Il Pa.s.sero?"
The Italian shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of ignorance.
Hugh Henfrey had certainly learned much that was curious. He had never before heard of the interesting cosmopolitan thief known as The Sparrow, but it seemed evident that the person in question had suddenly become interested in him for some obscure and quite unaccountable reason.
As day followed day in that humble place of concealment, Beppo told him many things concerning the famous criminal Il Pa.s.sero, describing his exploits in terms of admiration. Hugh learnt that it was The Sparrow who had planned the great jewel robbery at Binet"s, in the Rue de la Paix, when some famous diamonds belonging to the Shah of Persia, which had been sent to Paris to be reset, were stolen. It was The Sparrow, too, who had planned the burglary at the art gallery of Evans and Davies in Bond Street and stolen Raphael"s famous Madonna.
During the daytime Hugh, anxious to get away to Brussels, but compelled to obey the order of the mysterious Pa.s.sero, spent the time in smoking and reading books and newspapers with which Beppo"s wife provided him, while at night he would take long walks through the silent city, with its gloomy old palaces, the courtyards of which echoed to his footsteps.
At such times he was alone with his thoughts and would walk around the port and out upon the hills which surrounded the bay, and then sit down and gaze out to the twinkling lights across the sea and watch the long beams of the great lighthouse searching in the darkness.
His host and hostess were undoubtedly criminals. Indeed, they did not hide the fact. Both were paid by The Sparrow to conceal and provide for anyone whom he sent there.