""What has she done?" he said, keeping his eye on the ring--I shall always remember every look, every gesture, and every intonation of his voice. "Why, she has done all that a woman can do for a man like me. She has made me feel little. Until I had a rebuff from her, I had all the world at my feet, Lexman. I did as I liked. If I crooked my little finger, people ran after me and that one experience with her has broken me. Oh, don"t think," he went on quickly, "that I am broken in love. I never loved her very much, it was just a pa.s.sing pa.s.sion, but she killed my self-confidence. After then, whenever I came to a crucial moment in my affairs, when the big manner, the big certainty was absolutely necessary for me to carry my way, whenever I was most confident of myself and my ability and my scheme, a vision of this d.a.m.ned girl rose and I felt that momentary weakening, that memory of defeat, which made all the difference between success and failure.
""I hated her and I hate her still," he said with vehemence; "if she dies I shall hate her more because she will remain everlastingly unbroken to menace my thoughts and spoil my schemes through all eternity."
"He leant forward, his elbows on his knees, his clenched fist under his chin--how well I can see him!--and stared at me.
""I could have been king here in this land," he said, waving his hand toward the interior, "I could have bribed and shot my way to the throne of Albania. Don"t you realize what that means to a man like me? There is still a chance and if I could keep your wife alive, if I could see her broken in reason and in health, a poor, skeleton, gibbering thing that knelt at my feet when I came near her I should recover the mastery of myself. Believe me," he said, nodding his head, "your wife will have the best medical advice that it is possible to obtain."
"Kara went out and I did not see him again for a very long time. He sent word, just a scrawled note in the morning, to say my wife had died."
John Lexman rose up from his seat, and paced the apartment, his head upon his breast.
"From that moment," he said, "I lived only for one thing, to punish Remington Kara. And gentlemen, I punished him."
He stood in the centre of the room and thumped his broad chest with his clenched hand.
"I killed Remington Kara," he said, and there was a little gasp of astonishment from every man present save one. That one was T. X.
Meredith, who had known all the time.
CHAPTER XXII
After a while Lexman resumed his story.
"I told you that there was a man at the palazzo named Salvolio. Salvolio was a man who had been undergoing a life sentence in one of the prisons of southern Italy. In some mysterious fashion he escaped and got across the Adriatic in a small boat. How Kara found him I don"t know. Salvolio was a very uncommunicative person. I was never certain whether he was a Greek or an Italian. All that I am sure about is that he was the most unmitigated villain next to his master that I have ever met.
"He was a quick man with his knife and I have seen him kill one of the guards whom he had thought was favouring me in the matter of diet with less compunction than you would kill a rat.
"It was he who gave me this scar," John Lexman pointed to his cheek.
"In his master"s absence he took upon himself the task of conducting a clumsy imitation of Kara"s persecution. He gave me, too, the only glimpse I ever had of the torture poor Grace underwent. She hated dogs, and Kara must have come to know this and in her sleeping room--she was apparently better accommodated than I--he kept four fierce beasts so chained that they could almost reach her.
"Some reference to my wife from this low brute maddened me beyond endurance and I sprang at him. He whipped out his knife and struck at me as I fell and I escaped by a miracle. He evidently had orders not to touch me, for he was in a great panic of mind, as he had reason to be, because on Kara"s return he discovered the state of my face, started an enquiry and had Salvolio taken to the courtyard in the true eastern style and bastinadoed until his feet were pulp.
"You may be sure the man hated me with a malignity which almost rivalled his employer"s. After Grace"s death Kara went away suddenly and I was left to the tender mercy of this man. Evidently he had been given a fairly free hand. The princ.i.p.al object of Kara"s hate being dead, he took little further interest in me, or else wearied of his hobby.
Salvolio began his persecutions by reducing my diet. Fortunately I ate very little. Nevertheless the supplies began to grow less and less, and I was beginning to feel the effects of this starvation system when there happened a thing which changed the whole course of my life and opened to me a way to freedom and to vengeance.
"Salvolio did not imitate the austerity of his master and in Kara"s absence was in the habit of having little orgies of his own. He would bring up dancing girls from Durazzo for his amus.e.m.e.nt and invite prominent men in the neighbourhood to his feasts and entertainments, for he was absolutely lord of the palazzo when Kara was away and could do pretty well as he liked. On this particular night the festivities had been more than usually prolonged, for as near as I could judge by the day-light which was creeping in through my window it was about four o"clock in the morning when the big steel-sheeted door was opened and Salvolio came in, more than a little drunk. He brought with him, as I judged, one of his dancing girls, who apparently was privileged to see the sights of the palace.
"For a long time he stood in the doorway talking incoherently in a language which I think must have been Turkish, for I caught one or two words.
"Whoever the girl was, she seemed a little frightened, I could see that, because she shrank back from him though his arm was about her shoulders and he was half supporting his weight upon her. There was fear, not only in the curious little glances she shot at me from time to time, but also in the averted face. Her story I was to learn. She was not of the cla.s.s from whence Salvolio found the dancers who from time to time came up to the palace for his amus.e.m.e.nt and the amus.e.m.e.nt of his guests. She was the daughter of a Turkish merchant of Scutari who had been received into the Catholic Church.
"Her father had gone down to Durazzo during the first Balkan war and then Salvolio had seen the girl unknown to her parent, and there had been some rough kind of courtship which ended in her running away on this very day and joining her ill-favoured lover at the palazzo. I tell you this because the fact had some bearing on my own fate.
"As I say, the girl was frightened and made as though to go from the dungeon. She was probably scared both by the unkempt prisoner and by the drunken man at her side. He, however, could not leave without showing to her something of his authority. He came lurching over near where I lay, his long knife balanced in his hand ready for emergencies, and broke into a string of vituperations of the character to which I was quite hardened.
"Then he took a flying kick at me and got home in my ribs, but again I experienced neither a sense of indignity nor any great hurt. Salvolio had treated me like this before and I had survived it. In the midst of the tirade, looking past him, I was a new witness to an extraordinary scene.
"The girl stood in the open doorway, shrinking back against the door, looking with distress and pity at the spectacle which Salvolio"s brutality afforded. Then suddenly there appeared beside her a tall Turk.
He was grey-bearded and forbidding. She looked round and saw him, and her mouth opened to utter a cry, but with a gesture he silenced her and pointed to the darkness outside.
"Without a word she cringed past him, her sandalled feet making no noise. All this time Salvolio was continuing his stream of abuse, but he must have seen the wonder in my eyes for he stopped and turned.
"The old Turk took one stride forward, encircled his body with his left arm, and there they stood grotesquely like a couple who were going to start to waltz. The Turk was a head taller than Salvolio and, as I could see, a man of immense strength.
"They looked at one another, face to face, Salvolio rapidly recovering his senses... and then the Turk gave him a gentle punch in the ribs.
That is what it seemed like to me, but Salvolio coughed horribly, went limp in the other"s arms and dropped with a thud to the ground. The Turk leant down soberly and wiped his long knife on the other"s jacket before he put it back in the sash at his waist.
"Then with a glance at me he turned to go, but stopped at the door and looked back thoughtfully. He said something in Turkish which I could not understand, then he spoke in French.
""Who are you?" he asked.
"In as few words as possible I explained. He came over and looked at the manacle about my leg and shook his head.
""You will never be able to get that undone," he said.
"He caught hold of the chain, which was a fairly long one, bound it twice round his arm and steadying his arm across his thigh, he turned with a sudden jerk. There was a smart "snap" as the chain parted. He caught me by the shoulder and pulled me to my feet. "Put the chain about your waist, Effendi," he said, and he took a revolver from his belt and handed it to me.
""You may need this before we get back to Durazzo," he said. His belt was literally bristling with weapons--I saw three revolvers beside the one I possessed--and he had, evidently come prepared for trouble. We made our way from the dungeon into the clean-smelling world without.
"It was the second time I had been in the open air for eighteen months and my knees were trembling under me with weakness and excitement. The old man shut the prison door behind us and walked on until we came up to the girl waiting for us by the lakeside. She was weeping softly and he spoke to her a few words in a low voice and her weeping ceased.
""This daughter of mine will show us the way," he said, "I do not know this part of the country--she knows it too well."
"To cut a long story short," said Lexman, "we reached Durazzo in the afternoon. There was no attempt made to follow us up and neither my absence nor the body of Salvolio were discovered until late in the afternoon. You must remember that n.o.body but Salvolio was allowed into my prison and therefore n.o.body had the courage to make any investigations.
"The old man got me to his house without being observed, and brought a brother-in-law or some relative of his to remove the anklet. The name of my host was Hussein Effendi.
"That same night we left with a little caravan to visit some of the old man"s relatives. He was not certain what would be the consequence of his act, and for safety"s sake took this trip, which would enable him if need be to seek sanctuary with some of the wilder Turkish tribes, who would give him protection.
"In that three months I saw Albania as it is--it was an experience never to be forgotten!
"If there is a better man in G.o.d"s world than Hiabam Hussein Effendi, I have yet to meet him. It was he who provided me with money to leave Albania. I begged from him, too, the knife with which he had killed Salvolio. He had discovered that Kara was in England and told me something of the Greek"s occupation which I had not known before. I crossed to Italy and went on to Milan. There it was that I learnt that an eccentric Englishman who had arrived a few days previously on one of the South American boats at Genoa, was in my hotel desperately ill.
"My hotel I need hardly tell you was not a very expensive one and we were evidently the only two Englishmen in the place. I could do no less than go up and see what I could do for the poor fellow who was pretty well gone when I saw him. I seemed to remember having seen him before and when looking round for some identification I discovered his name I readily recalled the circ.u.mstance.
"It was George Gathercole, who had returned from South America. He was suffering from malarial fever and blood poisoning and for a week, with an Italian doctor, I fought as hard as any man could fight for his life. He was a trying patient," John Lexman smiled suddenly at the recollection, "vitriolic in his language, impatient and imperious in his att.i.tude to his friends. He was, for example, terribly sensitive about his lost arm and would not allow either the doctor or my-self to enter the room until he was covered to the neck, nor would he eat or drink in our presence. Yet he was the bravest of the brave, careless of himself and only fretful because he had not time to finish his new book. His indomitable spirit did not save him. He died on the 17th of January of this year. I was in Genoa at the time, having gone there at his request to save his belongings. When I returned he had been buried. I went through his papers and it was then that I conceived my idea of how I might approach Kara.
"I found a letter from the Greek, which had been addressed to Buenos Ayres, to await arrival, and then I remembered in a flash, how Kara had told me he had sent George Gathercole to South America to report upon possible gold formations. I was determined to kill Kara, and determined to kill him in such a way that I myself would cover every trace of my complicity.
"Even as he had planned my downfall, scheming every step and covering his trail, so did I plan to bring about his death that no suspicion should fall on me.
"I knew his house. I knew something of his habits. I knew the fear in which he went when he was in England and away from the feudal guards who had surrounded him in Albania. I knew of his famous door with its steel latch and I was planning to circ.u.mvent all these precautions and bring to him not only the death he deserved, but a full knowledge of his fate before he died.
"Gathercole had some money,--about 140 pounds--I took 100 pounds of this for my own use, knowing that I should have sufficient in London to recompense his heirs, and the remainder of the money with all such doc.u.ments as he had, save those which identified him with Kara, I handed over to the British Consul.