The whole affair was most puzzling. As I sat in the swift, open cab that took me back along the sea-road to Antignano, the crimson sun was setting, and the gaily dressed Italian crowd was promenading under the ilexes and acacias beside the Mediterranean. Leghorn is a fashionable bathing-place during July and August, and from the hour when the sun sinks behind Gorgona until far into the night no fairer prospect than the Viale Regina Margherita, as the beautiful promenade is called, with its open-air cafes and big bathing establishments, can be found in the south of Europe.
Through the little wood that lies between the fashionable village of Ardenza and the sea, where the oleanders were in the full blaze of their glory, my cab sped homeward; and having left the gaiety of the outskirts of Leghorn behind, I fell to reflecting upon the future, and wondering what, after all, was the hidden truth contained in The Closed Book--the knowledge that would place its possessor among the greatest on earth?
I thought of the strange circ.u.mstances in which I had purchased the old tome, of the inexplicable manner of Father Bernardo, of the old hunchback"s evil face at the church window, and, most of all, of that singularly handsome young woman in black whom I had encountered in the prior"s study--the woman with whom the fat priest had spoken in private.
Why should Father Bernardo have urged me to relinquish my bargain? Why should Graniani have come to me on the same errand, and have warned me?
Surely they could not be aware that the pages were envenomed, and just as surely they could have no motive in preventing my falling a victim!
If they were acting from purely humane motives, they would surely have explained the truth to me.
Besides, when I reflected, it became apparent that the vellum leaves at the end whereon was inscribed old G.o.dfrey"s chronicle had not been opened for many years, as a number of them had become stuck together by damp at the edge, and I had been compelled to separate them with a knife.
At last I sprang out, paid the driver, pa.s.sed through the echoing marble hall of the _villino_, and up the stairs towards my study.
Old Nello, who followed me, greeted me with the usual "_Ben tornato, signore_," and then added, "The lady called to see you, waited about a quarter of an hour in your study, and then left, promising to call tomorrow."
"She said nothing about the little panel of St Francis?"
"Nothing, signore. But she seemed an inquisitive young lady--from Bologna, I should say, from her accent."
"Young lady!" I exclaimed. "Why, the winegrower"s wife is sixty, if a day. Was this lady young?"
"About twenty-six, signore," was his reply. "Hers was a pretty face-- like a picture--only she seemed to wear a very sad look. She was dressed all in black, as though in mourning."
"What?" I cried, halting on the stairs, for the description of my visitor tallied with that of the woman I had seen in the priest"s study in Florence and afterwards in Leghorn. "Had she black eyes and a rather protruding, pointed chin?"
"She had, signore."
"And she was alone in my study a quarter of an hour?" I exclaimed.
"Yes. I looked through the keyhole, and, seeing her prying over your papers, I entered. Then she excused herself from remaining longer, and said she would call again."
"But that"s not the woman I expected, Nello?" And with a bound I rushed up the remaining stairs into the room.
A single glance around told me the truth.
The Closed Book had disappeared! It had been stolen by that woman, who had been following me, and whose face lived in my memory every hour.
I rushed around the room like a madman, asking Nello if he had placed the volume anywhere; but he had not. He recollected seeing it open upon my writing-table when he had ushered the visitor in, and had not thought of it until I now recalled the truth to him.
My treasure had been stolen; and as I turned towards my table I saw lying upon the blotting-pad a sheet of my own note paper, upon which was written in Italian, in an educated feminine hand, the axiom of Caesar Borgia as chronicled in the missing book:
"_That which is not done at noon can be done at sunset_."
CHAPTER TEN.
ACROSS EUROPE.
The Closed Book had been filched from me at the very moment when I was about to learn the secret it contained.
I put a few well-directed questions to Nello, and became confirmed in my suspicion that the woman who had stolen it was actually the same whose face had so attracted me that it had lived within my memory every moment since our first meeting.
Curious how the faces of some women haunt us, even when we have no desire for their affection! The fascination of a woman"s eyes is one of the unaccountable mysteries of life, being far beyond human ken or human control, and yet one of the most potent factors in man"s existence.
In the half-open drawer of my writing-table were certain private papers that I had taken from my despatch-box two days before, intending to send them to my solicitors in London, and these the unknown in black had apparently been examining. She had called with a fixed purpose, which she had accomplished--namely, to pry into my private affairs, and to gain possession of my treasured Arnoldus, the Book of Secrets.
As I knew Tuscany and the Tuscans so well, this ingenious conspiracy was scarcely surprising. The little plots, often harmless enough, that I had detected about me during my residence by the Mediterranean had shown me what a cleverly diplomatic race they were, and with what patient secretiveness they work towards their own ends. It annoyed me, however, to think that I should thus fall a victim to that handsome woman"s ingenuity. Veiled as she had been in Father Bernardo"s study, I had judged her to be much older than I found she was when I had noticed her in the streets of Leghorn. Who could she be, and what could be her motive in stealing my property if she were not in league with the prior himself?
My old servant Nello, standing there beside me, knew something more than he would tell. Of that I felt convinced. Possibly he had partic.i.p.ated in the plot, admitting her, well knowing her errand. He had warned me; therefore he must know something. What was the object of it all I utterly failed to conceive.
"That woman is a thief?" I exclaimed angrily a few moments later. "Who is she?"
"I--I do not know her, _signor padrone_," stammered the old man.
"She gave no name?"
"None. She said that you expected her."
"But she could not have taken away a big book like that without your noticing it?" I pointed out suspiciously.
"She had on a big black cloak, signore," was the crafty old fellow"s response.
I closed my writing-table and locked it, for in that moment I had decided to go straight to Florence and charge Bernardo Landini with being a party to the theft. Having sold the book to me, he wished to repossess himself of it, and on my refusal, had, it seemed, put in motion a kind of conspiracy against me.
The old hunchback was undoubtedly the director of it all.
I thrust a few things into a kit-bag, placed some money in my pocket, and put on an overcoat; and telling Nello that I should not return for a couple of days, perhaps, gave orders that no one was to be admitted to the house except my most intimate friend, Hutchinson, the British consul.
At the big, bare railway station, wherein the feeble gas-jet had just been lit, I saw, lounging beside the ticket-collector, the detective attached to that post, whose duty it was to notice all arrivals and departures; and, knowing him, I called him aside and briefly described the lady who had visited me.
"Yes, signore, I saw her. She left for Pisa an hour ago; she purchased a first-cla.s.s ticket for London."
"For London!" I gasped. "Had she any baggage?"
"A crocodile-leather dressing-case and a small flat box covered with brown leather."
"By what route was she travelling?"
The detective walked to the booking-office, and in response to his inquiries I learned that she had taken a direct ticket by way of Turin, Modane, Paris, and Calais. The train which caught at Pisa the express to the French frontier had left an hour ago; therefore I had no chance of overtaking her.
Still, something prompted me to take the next train to Pisa, for Italian railways are never punctual, and there was just a chance that she might have missed her connection. So half an hour later I sat in the dimly lit, rickety old compartment of that branch-line train, pondering over the events of the past day, and determined to run down the thief at all hazards.
At Pisa I quickly learned that the Leghorn train had arrived in time to catch the express; therefore the woman in black was now well on her way towards the frontier.
I purchased a railway-guide, and entering the waiting-room, sat down to study it calmly. After half an hour I decided upon a plan. The homeward Indian mail from Brindisi to London would pa.s.s through Turin at 9:10 on the following morning, and, if I caught it, would land me at Calais three hours in advance of the express by which she was travelling. But from Pisa to Turin is a far cry--half-way across Italy; and I at once consulted the station-master as to the possibility of arriving in time.
There was none, he declared. The express for the north, which left in two hours" time, could not arrive in Turin before 9:20, ten minutes after the departure of the Indian mail. Therefore it was impossible.