And I handed him Sammy Sampson"s pa.s.sport which had been in the writing-book in my suit-case for close upon a year--ever since he and I had taken a short trip to San Sebastian, over the Spanish border.
The police inspector opened the doc.u.ment, glanced at the visa of the Italian Consulate-General in London, and carefully spelt the name of Sampson.
"There is no description or profession," he remarked dubiously.
"Well," I said, "I suppose that is not the first English pa.s.sport you"ve seen, is it? But I don"t think you have ever seen one different, or with fuller detail than that!"
"Then you are not G.o.dfrey `Lif"?" he asked, still dubious.
"I"m what I"ve already told you. What do you suspect of me? I"m an Englishman travelling home, I"ve committed no crime or offence against the law, and I don"t see why I should suffer this indignity! But if you desire to be satisfied, you are perfectly at liberty to search me and my belongings." And I handed him my bundle.
"We"ve already seen it when it was examined in the _dogana_," remarked one of the detectives.
My revolver licence, card-case, cigarette-case and other articles that might betray me I had been careful to put in my trunk which was registered through to London. Therefore I had thoroughly a.s.sumed my friend"s ident.i.ty. English pa.s.sports are so vague and lax that the greatest abuses are often committed with them.
I was quick to notice that my prompt reply to the questions rather nonplussed my interrogator. He took the official telegram from the table, read what it contained very carefully, and then looked long and earnestly at me.
I remained firm and unmoved, well knowing that all my future happiness depended upon my calm indifference. Yet indifference at such a moment was a matter of extreme difficulty.
He began to put other questions to me, in the hope, it appeared, of making me commit myself to a falsehood. But I was now thoroughly on the alert, and gave quick, unhesitating replies.
Had the inspector been an Englishman he would probably have detected by my speech that I was not an under-steward, but being Italian he was thus handicapped. Indeed, so circ.u.mstantial an account did I give of getting two months" leave from my ship to visit my mother in London, and in addition presenting a pa.s.sport perfectly in order, that just before the train was leaving for France he and his companions, filled with doubt as to whether I was actually the person wanted, allowed me to walk out again upon the platform--a free man!
Five minutes later I had mounted into an empty third-cla.s.s compartment, but I dare not breathe before the train slowly moved away in the "direction de Paris."
The terrible anxiety of those moments will surely live with me until my dying day, for I had both love and life at stake; my own love, my well-beloved"s life!
After thirty hours of slow travelling and constant stoppages and shuntings I arrived at the Gare de Lyon, and again resuming the luxury of a collar and cravat I purchased a ready-made suit of blue serge, a hard felt hat and a few necessaries, for no longer I needed the disguise of a workman.
Contrary to my usual custom of going to the Grand, I put up at the Athenee, which is greatly patronised by Americans, and where I had a New York friend staying at that moment. Then, after dinner, I telegraphed to Leghorn to Lucie Miller telling her that I had left Italy, and that if she wished to communicate with me she should write or telegraph. My idea was that if her father had been arrested, as he most probably had been, she would certainly require the a.s.sistance of some friend, and might probably prefer me. Of course she would not willingly admit to me her father"s disgrace, yet by her own actions I should be pretty well able to judge what had taken place.
I was eager to be back near Ella, yet before I crossed to England I determined to await a reply to my message to Lucie.
For three days I remained in suspense, idling with my American friend in cafes and restaurants, and showing him Paris in a mild kind of way.
I had searched the French and English newspapers diligently to learn any details of the affair at the Villa Verde, but in vain, until one evening in the reading-room of the hotel I came across a copy of the _Corriere della Sera_, the journal of Milan, in which was a long telegram from Rome, headed: "The Escape of the Minister Nardini: Mysterious Tragedy at the Villa Verde."
In breathless eagerness I read how the police, on going in the morning to relieve the guard placed at the villa, found the unfortunate man lying dead with a knife-wound in his heart. Thieves had evidently entered the house by the window of the study which looked out upon the roadway, for the iron bars had been filed through and a s.p.a.ce made sufficient to admit a man. Nothing, however, had been taken, as far as could be ascertained. The study was in complete order, and the police theory was that the man in charge, hearing the noise, had entered the room only to be confronted by several men. He then fled across the house intending to get out and raise the alarm, when he was overtaken in the pa.s.sage and stabbed.
The theory was, of course, quite a natural one.
The thieves had, it seemed, before their escape placed the room in order, closed the secret cupboard, replaced the panel, and put down the carpet as they had found it. The action of reclosing the panel had, of course, released the bolts that held the door, but they had already, by some means or other, cut through the bars. Probably they escaped without knowing that the door had been automatically released.
In any case they were clear away with a sum amounting to many thousands of pounds sterling--probably the greatest haul Miller had made in all his career.
There was, however, a second telegram which stated that two carabineers patrolling the road near the villa had stopped and questioned a mysterious Englishman who was now suspected to be one of the a.s.sa.s.sins, and after whom the police were in active search.
Miller and his companions were actually scot-free--and with their enormous booty!
No word was published regarding the mysterious discovery previously made in that house. The police were still hushing up the affair that was so shrouded in mystery, yet at the same time they evidently connected the two curious circ.u.mstances, and regarded them as a problem altogether beyond solution. Little, however, did they dream that the missing man"s secret h.o.a.rd had been carried off in its entirety!
Next morning, when the waiter brought my coffee, a telegram lay upon the tray. It was from Lucie, despatched the previous day from the Swiss frontier at Chia.s.so, announcing that she and her father were on their way to Paris and would arrive that night at the Hotel de Grand, which proved to be a modest little place in the Rue de la Michodiere, near the Boulevard des Italiens.
Miller was escaping with those thick packets of thousand-franc notes which I had seen him secure, though Lucie was, of course, in entire ignorance of what had occurred.
Next morning I anxiously sought her. She came to me in the little salon of the unpretending hotel, a neat figure in her blue serge travelling-dress and smart little toque. Greeting me enthusiastically, she exclaimed:--
"How suddenly you went from Leghorn! I sent down to the Palace Hotel, for I wanted to see you again, but you had gone. I wanted to tell you that I"ve heard from Ella. The tenant of Wichenford has been recalled suddenly to America, and she and Mr Murray are back there for a little while. I thought you would like to know this."
"Know it? Of course I do. I shall leave Paris to-night," I said, glad to have news of my well-beloved.
"We also leave to-night. We are on our way back to Studland. Father wired me to meet him in Milan, and I did so. Then he explained that we were going home again, and that we should not return to Italy till the spring."
He would probably never return to Italy, I thought, though I said nothing, except to congratulate her upon the prospect of spending a few months in Dorsetshire at the old home she loved so well.
At that moment Miller himself entered, surprised to find me there, but shaking my hand warmly said:--"Why, my dear Leaf! who would have thought to find you here? I believed you were in England."
"Miss Lucie sent me word that you were pa.s.sing through Paris," I explained, "so it was my duty to call and pay my compliments."
"We"ve just been on a flying visit to Italy," he said. "I had some rather pressing affairs to attend to in Rome. To-night, however, we go back to Studland."
"Mr Leaf is also crossing with us," remarked his daughter.
"Oh! excellent!" exclaimed the man whom I had last seen cramming those ill-gotten notes into his pockets, his face flushed with the eager l.u.s.t for wealth, his voice raised loudly in angry protest against an equal division of the booty. "We"ll meet at the Gare du Nord, eh?"
Calm, grey-faced, distinguished-looking and of gentlemanly bearing, surely no one would have ever dreamed that his character was such as it really had been proved to be. He offered me a cigarette, lit one himself, and all three of us went out for a stroll along the Boulevard and the Rue de la Paix. We lunched together in one of the little restaurants in the Palais Royal, but neither by word nor deed did Miller display any fear of recognition.
I wondered in what direction Gavazzi had fled; and would have given a good deal to know how they had managed to get through those formidable bars which I had believed unbreakable.
Lucie"s father being with us the whole time, I had no opportunity of speaking to her alone. At three o"clock I left them at the hotel, and at nine that evening joined them in the night-mail for Calais and London.
On board the steamer, Miller went below, while I got Lucie a deck-chair, wrapped her in an oilskin borrowed from a seaman, and sat beside her.
The night was a perfect one, with a bright full moon shining over the Channel, and as we sat we watched the flashing light of Calais slowly disappearing at the stern.
"Your father seems to be returning quite unexpectedly to England," I said presently, after she had been admiring the reflection of the moon upon the glittering waters.
"Yes. I was quite surprised. He gave me no warning. Poor old dad is always so very erratic. He told me to meet him at the Metropole in Milan, and hardly gave me time to get there. I had to leave the house within an hour of receiving his wire."
"Did he telegraph from Rome?"
"No. From Ancona, on the Adriatic."
So he had escaped at once to the other side of Italy without returning to Rome.
"What has Ella told you in her letter?"
"Nothing more than what I have already explained. She makes no mention of--of the man whom we need not name."