gives some explanations.
her voice was soft and refined. she was evidently a lady.
the mysterious stranger had held the secret which might liberate her, yet he had carried it with him to the grave!
who was he? who was she?
the situation was certainly one of the most difficult in which a man could find himself. miss gilbert, in order to conceal the fact that a death had occurred in her boarding-house, had pretended that massari had left. i saw, however, that the pale-faced girl before me was desperate, and felt convinced that the melancholy truth should be revealed to her.
the man’s death sealed her doom. she had made that entirely plain to me.
i now distinguished that her dress was dusty, her dark hair slightly dishevelled, and she bore traces of long travel. she had evidently, on arrival from the continent, come straight from charing cross out to shepherd’s bush. therefore, by some secret means, she knew of massari’s intention of hiding himself at mrs gilbert’s.
“you do not reply,” she said, in a voice full of reproach. “do you really refuse to render me assistance, sir? remember, i am a helpless woman who begs her life of you. you have seen and spoken with that man. where is he now?”
for a moment i hesitated. then seeing that she must sooner or later know the truth i drew my breath and said:—
“come, follow me.” and opening the door we ascended the stairs.
“ah!” she cried excitedly. “he is still here! that woman lied when she told me he had gone, eh? he is still in the house!”
i made no reply, but went on, she following closely behind.
then a few moments later, having gained the top landing, i threw open the door of the darkened chamber of death and drew aside the curtains.
she dashed to the bed and tore the sheet from the dead, white face.
then she staggered back as though she had received a blow.
“my god!” she cried. “too late!—too late!”
dull, dazed, she stood there, with the stare of blank despair in her eyes and pale as ashes. the dead white face seemed to wear a smile—the smile of cheerful resignation, as though his body had parted with its spirit in gladness and in triumph.
for a little while she stood stock-still and speechless—the living dead! suddenly—ah! it is nothing in the telling; one should have heard and seen to realise—suddenly there welled up from the depths of her heart the sigh of its aching, the sob of its breaking. then she shrieked with the ghastly laughter of despair. then she lashed out to a cursing of the dead man and all his deeds; and her execrations were the most shocking because they proceeded from the tongue of a sweet-mouthed woman.
of a sudden her eyes fell upon the stranger’s two portmanteaux, and dashing across she knelt to open them.
“no,” i said quietly, “i cannot permit you to touch anything there.”
“you cannot permit—you!” she cried, facing me.
“and who, pray, are you? have i not more right to know what he has here than you?”
and with a sudden wrench she broke the hasp of the weak, foreign-made lock, and next instant turned the whole of the contents, clothes and papers, out upon the floor.
quickly she searched among the quantity of papers, as though looking for something. yet she was disappointed.
i took up several of the folded documents and found that they were bonds and other securities. it almost seemed as though the mysterious massari had fled at an instant’s warning and taken all the valuables he had at hand.
the second portmanteau resisted her efforts to break it open, therefore i handed her the key. if, as she said, that man had held her future in his hands, she certainly had a right to look through what he had left behind.
in her eagerness she tossed the papers hither and thither, now pausing to scan a letter and now breaking open a sealed envelope and hastily ascertaining the contents.
“no,” she cried hoarsely at last, turning fiercely to where the dead body lay. “you have left no written record. brute! coward! assassin!” she hissed between her teeth, shaking her fist in the dead man’s face. “you refused to give me my freedom—to clear my honour—you laughed in my face—you who knew the truth but refused to speak!”
the scene was terrible, the living execrating the dead. i took her by the arm and tried to lead her away. but she shook me off, crying:—
“he has died of the terrible disease with which god had afflicted him. he knew, too well, that after his death i should be helpless and defenceless. he was wealthy, but what did all his wealth serve him—compelled to fly at night and hide himself here, hoping that i should not discover him. he little dreamed that i knew of his hiding-place.”
“then he could have cleared you of some false charge, had he been so inclined?” i inquired, hoping that she would reveal the truth to me.
“yes. a foul dastardly charge has been made against me—one of the cruellest and blackest that can be laid against a woman,” she answered. “by a word he could have established my innocence. he knew i was innocent, yet he refused—he laughed in my face, and told me that he would not lift a little finger to help either me or my father.”
“why not?”
“because the establishment of my innocence would have given me my happiness.”
“and he denied it to you. he had a motive, i suppose?”
“yes—oh yes!” she said. “even my tears did not move him. i went upon my knees and begged him to speak, but he was obdurate. that was eight days ago. and how soon has fate overtaken him! two days later he was compelled to fly in secret in order to avoid arrest, and to-day he is lying there dead—his lips, alas! sealed.”
“ah! unfortunately,” i sighed, “he can no longer bear witness on your behalf, miss—i have not the pleasure of your name?” i said, hesitating purposely.
“miller—lucie miller,” she replied. “and yours?”
“godfrey leaf.”
“yes, mr leaf, it is unfortunate for me,” she said, with a dark look of desperation. “i am a doomed woman!”
“oh, no, you must not speak like that,” i urged. “surely the charge against you is not so very serious!” to me it seemed impossible that such a sweet-faced girl should have any grave imputation against her.
“i have enemies, bitter, relentless enemies,” was her brief response. she had grown a little calmer, and i had replaced the sheet over the cold, lifeless countenance of the man who had refused to tell the world the truth and thus save her.
“have you travelled from rome alone?” i inquired.
“no. i had a companion,” she answered, but did not satisfy me whether it was a male or female.
“you live in rome, perhaps?” i asked, for i saw that she had a cosmopolitan air which was not that of an english-bred woman.
“no. i generally live in leghorn.”
“ah! in tuscany. i know leghorn quite well—the brighton of italy, a very gay place in summer. pancaldi’s at four o’clock in the season is always bright and amusing.”
“you really know pancaldi’s?” she exclaimed, brightening. “only fancy! we have so very few english in leghorn. they prefer vallombrosa or the bagni di lucca. indeed an englishman in leghorn, beyond the shipping people, is quite a rarity.”
“and this man massari—it was not his real name?” i said.
“no. but i regret that i am not permitted to tell you who he really was. he was a person very well-known in italy—a person of whom you read frequently in the newspapers. that is all i may tell you.”
“well, really, miss miller, all this is very mystifying,” i said. “why did he come here?”
“because he thought that he would be able to live in hiding. he feared lest i might follow him.”
“but you said that he also feared arrest.”
“that is so. he was compelled to escape. his enemies laid a trap for him, just as he did for my father and myself.”
“but why did he refuse to give you back your happiness by clearing you of the charge? to me it seems almost incredible that a man should thus treat an innocent woman.”
“ah! mr leaf, you didn’t know him. he was one of the most unscrupulous and hard-hearted men in the whole of italy. every soldo he possessed bore upon it the blood and tears of the poor. he lent money at exorbitant interest to the contadini, and delighted to ruin them from the sheer love of cruelty and oppression. those papers there,” and she pointed to the securities she had scattered upon the dingy carpet, “and every franc he possessed are accursed.”
and he had given me the sum of two hundred pounds for accepting the responsibility of his funeral and of the sealed packet.
“you mean that he was, by profession, a moneylender?”
“oh, dear no. he lent money merely for the purpose of ruining people. he was heartless and cruel by nature, and if a man committed suicide—as many did because he had ruined them—he would laugh at the poor fellow as a fool, and take the very bread from the mouths of the widow and family.”
“the brute! a jew, i suppose?”
“no. the people believed him to be one, but he was not. in his methods he was more fiendish than any hebrew. he did not lend money for profit, but in order to bring misery to others. the one kind, generous action he might have performed towards me, the giving back to me my honour, he refused. to him, it was nothing; to me, everything. it meant my life.”
and i saw in her eyes a desperate look that deeply impressed me.
“i wish you would be more explicit, miss miller. if i can be of any service to you or assist you in any way, i shall be delighted. really i don’t like to hear you talk as you do. if you are in a quandary there must be some way out of it, and two heads, you know, are always better than one.”
she sighed, and raising her fine eyes to mine, replied:—
“ah! i fear, mr leaf, that your kind assistance would be unavailing, although i thank you all the same. that man yonder held my life in his hand. one word from him would have saved me. but he refused, and before i could overtake him death had claimed him.”
“he told me that he felt no regret in having to die,” i said.
“of course not. had he lived the truth would have been revealed, and he would have dragged out his remaining days in a convict prison. i know that truth—a strange and startling one—a truth which would assuredly amaze and astound you. but he is dead,” she added, “and though he refused to give me back my honour and my life i will never seek a vendetta upon one whom the avenger has already claimed—one whom god himself has justly judged.”
and together we turned, and left the silent chamber wherein lay the remains of the man who was a mystery.
