the truth about the stranger.
i sat staring at my friend, unable to utter a word.
in the past twenty-four hours, through no fault or seeking of my own, i had suddenly been plunged into a maze of mystery, and there had been revealed to me a grave personal peril of which i had been in utter ignorance.
what the sweet, open-faced girl had divulged to me had caused me much amazement, yet this extraordinary story of sammy’s was utterly dumbfounding. i could not bring myself to believe that the girl who had so simply confessed to me her distress had wilfully assisted her father in robbing young carrera, thereby causing him to take his life. to me it was utterly incredible.
yet the fact that she had any connection with the mysterious italian now lying dead above caused me to ponder. she knew the secret of that incident in quiet old pisa. yes. she was a mystery.
had she told me the actual truth? that was the question which greatly puzzled me.
through the following day and the next when, with sammy, i followed the italian to his lonely grave at highgate, i recalled every incident of that strange sequence of circumstances, and longed again to see and question her.
sammy, with that easy irresponsibility which was one of his chief characteristics, declared that lucie, for obvious reasons, would not show herself again. but, on the other hand, i argued that if his allegation that she had come to granville gardens in order to meet me were correct, then she would return. she had, i pointed out, no suspicion that he was there and had recognised her. therefore there was nothing to prevent her seeking me.
the whole circumstances were both romantic and puzzling.
the very man who she had alleged had plotted with the woman hardwick against me had entrusted his most valuable possessions to me. why? had the small kindness i had shown him turned his heart towards me? certainly he had paid me for my services—the sum of two hundred pounds.
once or twice i wondered how i stood legally. the man was dead, yet i had a faint suspicion that i had no legal right whatsoever to administer his estate. there might be a will somewhere, and if legatees came forward i might one day find myself in a very queer and awkward position.
but i told sammy nothing of this. i deemed it best to preserve silence both as regards the money and the curious packet that i was to keep three years.
a week went by. the man who had given his name as massari had been interred, the expenses paid, and life at mrs gilbert’s had resumed its normal quiet. indeed, not until three days after the funeral were the other guests let into the tragic secret of the stranger’s sudden death. then for a day or two the whole place was agog and various theories formed. in london a foreigner is always viewed with a certain amount of suspicion, perhaps on account of our insular proclivities, perhaps because the majority of londoners know no other language beyond a smattering of elementary french.
often and often, when alone in our little den at the back of the house, sammy and i discussed the curious affair, but neither of us was able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion.
to be in order, i called in a solicitor named price whom i knew, and a week after massari’s death we opened his portmanteaux together and examined the contents.
they presented several surprises. sammy was, of course, with us, taking an eager interest in the affair and helping to examine the documents which we found. he was of little use, however, for they were mostly in italian, a language of which both my companions were almost entirely ignorant.
the first fact i established was that the name of the deceased was not massari but giovanni nardini. this surprised us all, for nardini was very well-known in italy, having held the portfolio of justice in the ministry overthrown only a week before, and having made himself conspicuous in his perpetual war with the socialist party in the chamber. only two days ago i had read telegrams from rome in the morning papers saying that there were serious charges against the minister of appropriating the public funds while in office, and that the government were considering what steps they should take for his prosecution.
i had never connected the notorious minister of justice nardini with the stranger who had died so suddenly. yet had not lucie miller told me that he was a person well-known in italy?
“he was a thief who absconded, that’s very evident,” sammy remarked dryly. “we shall perhaps find something interesting presently.”
the lawyer price and myself were seated at the table in the room where the ex-minister had died, and we both carefully examined paper after paper, i reading aloud a rough translation.
many of the documents were, i recognised, of extreme importance to the government. some were the official records of sentences pronounced by the tribunal upon various persons and had evidently been extracted from the archives of the ministry.
“i wonder what he intended to do with these?” price remarked presently. “perhaps his idea was to sell them to the persons who had been condemned to enable them to destroy the record.”
“or perhaps he held them for the purposes of levying blackmail?” sammy suggested. “no man, if he were leading an honest life, would like to have his police record hawked about.”
“but here,” i said, holding up a paper, “here are the confidential notes of the president of the court of assizes at milan concerning two very important cases, showing the lines on which the prosecution was to be conducted. these would surely be of the utmost value to the prisoners, for upon them they could form a complete defence. the prosecution is a political one, and the weak points in the evidence are indicated and commented upon. yes,” i added, “all these official documents have been carried off because they could easily be turned into money. we shall be compelled to restore them to the italian government.”
“his excellency, when he fled from rome, took care to carry away all he could that was of value,” remarked the solicitor. “fate, however, very quickly overtook him before he had time to negotiate any of the documents.”
the letters occupied us some considerable time. they were in two packets secured by broad elastic bands, and all were, without exception, letters from poor unfortunate victims who were in his clutches financially and who begged for further time in which to pay. some of them, written in illiterate calligraphy, were heartrending appeals for wife, family, honour—even life. they were the collection of a hard-hearted man whose delight it was to crush and oppress rich and poor alike. the letters showed that. more than one was full of bitter reproach and withering sarcasm, revealing plainly that what the english girl had said concerning him was the actual truth.
and yet in my short acquaintance with him prior to his decease i had never dreamed that his character was as such.
nevertheless at that moment, as i afterwards discovered, the italian press was full of bitter abuse of the man who for the past four years or so had been one of the most popular in italy. but he had been found out, and in ignorance of his death they were now hounding him down and appealing to the government to arrest and prosecute him.
we had nearly completed our investigation, price taking a careful inventory of the contents of the portmanteaux, when i discovered an envelope in which was a large yellow printed form filled in with a quantity of microscopic writing.
within was a folded sheet of grey notepaper—a letter in italian which i read eagerly, holding my breath, for what was contained there staggered me.
my companions watched my change of countenance in wonder. and well, indeed, they might, for it was the appeal of a desperate woman, a letter that revealed to me an amazing truth—a letter signed “lucie.”
and when i had finished reading it, i sat there, staring as the written lines danced before my eyes, amazed, unable to utter a single word in response to their questions.
