"Have you any idea where your wife is, or what has induced her to go away from home? Perhaps you had some words!"
"Words, signore!" he echoed. "Why, we were the happiest pair in all London. No unkind word ever pa.s.sed between us. There seems absolutely no reason whatever why she should go away without wishing me a word of farewell."
"But why haven"t you told the police?"
"For reasons that I have already stated. I prefer to make inquiries for myself."
"And in what have your inquiries resulted?"
"Nothing--absolutely nothing," he said gravely.
"You do not suspect any plot? I recollect that night in Lambeth you told me that you had enemies?"
"Ah! so I have, signore--and so have you!" he exclaimed hoa.r.s.ely. "Yes, my poor Armida may have been entrapped by them."
"And if entrapped, what then?"
"Then they would kill her with as little compunction as they would a fly," he said. "Ah! you do not know the callousness of those people. I only hope and pray that she may have escaped and is in hiding somewhere, and will arrive unexpectedly and give me a startling surprise. She delights in startling me," he added with a laugh.
Poor fellow, I thought, she would never again be able to startle him.
She had actually fallen a victim just as he dreaded.
"Then you think she must have been called away from home by some urgent message?" I suggested.
"By the manner in which she left things, it seemed as though she went away hurriedly. There were five sovereigns in a drawer that we had saved for the rent, and she took them with her."
I paused again, hesitating whether to tell him the terrible truth. I recollected that the body had disappeared, therefore what proof had I of my allegation that she had been murdered?
"Tell me, Olinto," I said as we moved forward again in the direction of Paddington Station, "have you any knowledge of a man named Leithcourt?"
He started suddenly and looked at me.
"I have heard of him," he answered very lamely.
"And of his daughter--Muriel?"
"And also of her. But I am not acquainted with them--nor, to tell the truth, do I wish to be."
"Why?"
"Because they are enemies of mine--bitter enemies."
His declaration was strange, for it threw some light upon the tragedy in Rannoch Wood.
"And of your wife also?"
"I do not know that," he responded. "My enemies are my wife"s also, I suppose."
"You have not told me the secret of that dastardly attempt upon me when we last met," I said in a low voice. "Why not tell me the truth? I surely ought to know who my enemies really are, so as to be warned against any future plot."
"You shall know some day, signore. I dare not tell you now."
"You said that before," I exclaimed with dissatisfaction. "If you are faithful to me, you ought at least to tell me the reason they wished to kill me in secret."
"Because they fear you," was his answer.
"Why should they fear me?"
But he shrugged his shoulders, and made a gesture with his hands indicative of utter ignorance.
"I ask you one question. Answer yes or no. Is the man Leithcourt my enemy?"
The young Italian paused, and then answered:
"He is not your friend. I am quite well aware of that."
"And his daughter? She is engaged, I hear."
"I think so."
"Where did you first meet Leithcourt?"
"I have known him several years. When we first met he was poor."
"Suddenly became rich--eh?"
"Bought a fine house in the country; lives mostly at the Carlton when he and his wife and daughter are in London--although I believe they now have a house somewhere in the West End--and he often makes long cruises on his steam-yacht."
"And how did he make his money?"
Again Olinto elevated his shoulders, without replying.
If he would only betray to me the reason he had been induced to entice me to that house, I might then be able to form some conclusion regarding the tenants of Rannoch and their friends.
Who was the man who, having represented the man now before me, had been struck dead by an unerring hand? Was it possible that Armida had been called by telegram to meet her husband, and recognizing the fraud perpetrated upon her threatened to disclose it and, for that reason, shared the same fate as the masquerader?
This was the first theory that occurred to me; one which I believed to be the correct one. The motive was a mystery, yet the facts seemed to me plain enough.
As the young Italian had refused to give any satisfactory explanation, I resolved within myself to wait until the unfortunate woman"s body was recovered before revealing to him the ghastly truth. Without doubt he had some reason in withholding from me the true facts, either because he feared that I might become unduly alarmed, or else he himself had been deeply implicated in the plot. Of the two suggestions, I was inclined to believe in the latter.
He walked with me as far as the end of Bishop"s Road, endeavoring with all the Italian"s exquisite diplomacy to obtain from me what I knew concerning the Leithcourts. But I told him nothing, nor did I reveal that I had only that morning returned from Scotland. Then at last we parted, and he retraced his steps to the little restaurant in Westbourne Grove, while I entered a hansom and drove to the well-known photographer"s in New Bond Street, whose name had been upon the torn photograph of the young girl in the white pique blouse and her hair fastened with a bow of black ribbon, the picture that I had found on board the _Lola_ on that memorable night in the Mediterranean, and a duplicate of which I had seen in Muriel"s cosy little room up at Rannoch.
I recollected that she had told me the name of the original was Elma Heath, and that she had been a schoolfellow of hers at Chichester.
Therefore I inquired of the photographer"s lady-clerk whether she could supply me with a print of the negative.
For a considerable time she searched in her books for the name, and at last discovered it. Then she said:
"I regret, sir, that we can"t give you a print, for the customer purchased the negative at the time."