yours are?"
"No, nor do I wish to know," he snapped. "I am alone--you understand--entirely alone. And, moreover, I trust that if you are my friend, asyou seem to wish to be, you will so far respect my memory as not tobelieve all that will probably be said against me. To you only I admitthat I am not what I have represented myself to be--that is all. Iaccept your kindness, but, alas! with considerable shame."
I drew the Italian notes from the wallet, and counted them.
"There are twenty-eight thousand lire here," I remarked, "one thousandone hundred and twenty pounds."
"What does it concern me how much there is?" he asked, smiling. "Use itas I've directed. Indeed," he added, after a pause, "you need not tellany one that you have it."
"I shall tell my friend Sampson, or people may think that I've stolenit," I said.
"Yes," he remarked hoarsely, with a sigh, "people are always ready tothink ill of one, are they not?"
And then, as the bar of sunlight crept slowly across the worn-outcarpet, a deep silence again fell, broken only by the stranger's fierce,vengeful mutterings which to me conveyed no distinct meaning.
"_Madonna mia_!" he cried aloud once, cringing in excruciating pain."How I suffer! I wonder how long it must be before I give out. _Dio_!Is this the punishment of hell?"
Then he turned his eyes upon me--those wide-open, horrified eyes--in alook the remembrance of which is even to-day still before me, therecollection of which I shall carry with me to the grave.
There was something indescribable about that expression, uncanny,fascinating, inhuman. They were the eyes of a man who, though stillalive, was obtaining his first glance into the awful mysteries of theeternity.
At half-past seven Tulloch returned and brought him a soothing draught,so that he slept, and I then left the sick-room to dress and breakfast.
With Mrs Gilbert, Sammy and I agreed that no word of the painful affairshould be told to our fellow-guests, because illness in a boarding-housealways causes the visitors to make excuses for departure. So we saidnothing.
Sampson had some urgent business with his solicitor in the City thatday, therefore I remained at home, acting as nurse to the unfortunateman whose end was now so near.
Three times during the day Tulloch returned, but all he did provedunavailing. The stranger could not possibly live, he said. It was awonder that he had had strength to withstand the journey to England. Itwas the reaction that was proving fatal--internal haemorrhage.
Just before six o'clock, when I crept on tiptoe back to the mysteriousman's darkened room to see if he still slept, he called me eagerly in alow whisper, saying that he wished to speak to me in strict confidence.
I therefore seated myself at his bedside and bent down, so that theeffort of speaking should be as little as possible.
"There is still one further favour I would beg of you, Signor Leaf. Iwonder whether--whether you would grant it?" he asked very feebly,stretching out his thin hand until it rested upon my wrist.
"If it is within my power, I will," I assured him.
"Then you see this!" he exclaimed, drawing from beneath his pillow asmall flat packet in white paper about four inches square and secured bythree large black oval seals evidently impressed by some old monasticseal of the middle ages.
"I want you," he said, "to accept the responsibility of this. They arepapers of considerable value to certain relatives in Italy. Will youtake charge of it, and three years after my death hand it intact to theItalian Ambassador? I appeal to you to do so, for you are my onlyfriend, and I am dying," he added, in a tone of intense earnestness.
"If you wish," I said, somewhat reluctant, however, to undertake suchresponsibility. And I took the packet, and, after examining the seals,transferred it to my pocket.
The mysterious Massari firmly declined my offer to go to the ItalianChurch in Hatton Garden and fetch a priest.
"I don't wish to see anybody," he snapped. "I have a reason. At leastlet me die in peace."
And an hour later, just as Tulloch returned, he again fixed those brightstaring eyes upon me and silently passed away, carrying with him hissecret to the grave.
It concerned a woman. That much he had admitted. Who was the woman, Iwondered? What was her secret?
"This man had a strange history, I feel convinced," I remarked in a lowvoice to Tulloch as we left the chamber of death together and quietlyclosed the door.
"Yes," he said. "He seemed a queer fellow. But in my profession, oldchap, we often meet strange people, you know. Men, when they are dying,frequently have curious fancies and extraordinary hallucinations."
And then we went down into Mrs Gilbert's sitting-room to inform her ofthe unfortunate occurrence in her house.
I locked the sealed packet and the bulky wallet safely away in mydespatch-box, and when Sammy returned a little later I told him all thathad occurred.
My friend, a short, fair-haired, round-faced fellow of thirty-eight, asplendid type of the muscular athletic Englishman, flung himself intothe big leather armchair with a cigarette and listened. Like mine, hislife had been full of adventure. Some years before he had thrown up hiscommission in the Scots Greys in order to go on active service, anywhereso long as there was fighting. He had been through three South Americanrevolutions; had served with the Americans in Cuba; had been mentionedin despatches for his services before Ladysmith, and was nowcontemplating volunteering for service against the Mad Mullah.Possessed of comfortable private means he was soldier, traveller,big-game hunter and champion tennis-player, a good all-round manbubbling over with good-humour, and a great favourite with the ladies.
"Well, Godfrey, old chap," he remarked, stretching himself out when Ihad concluded my story. "Certainly the fellow's a bit of a mystery. Doyou know, I watched him very closely at table last night, and it somehowstruck me that he feared to be recognised. Each time the door opened hestarted and looked apprehensively in its direction. Besides, a man ofhis stamp doesn't usually come to a boarding-house of this sort. He'dgo to the Savoy, or the Cecil. Depend upon it he had a motive in cominghere, and that motive was in order to hide himself. He may have donesomething wrong in Italy and fled to London, as so many do. Who knows?"
Truth to tell, my friend's suggestion exactly coincided with my ownsuspicion. Jane, the maid-of-all-work, had told me, to my surprise,that when she had entered his room that morning during my absence he hadspoken to her in most excellent English! The fact, too, that he hadrefused to see a priest seemed to point to a fear lest his hiding-placemight be discovered.
But he was dead, and I had, rather unwisely perhaps, accepted a curiousresponsibility. Even the money he had placed in my charge might be theproceeds of some theft!
That night I arranged with a neighbouring undertaker that the remains ofthe stranger should be taken away on the following night when the wholehouse was asleep, a service for which I received the heartfelt gratitudeof Mrs Gilbert.
About seven o'clock the next evening when I returned from the club, MissGilbert met me excitedly in the hall, and asked whether I would mindstepping into her mother's sitting-room for a moment.
Seated within, I found a tall, dark-haired, sweet-faced girl in neatblack who looked at me with shy inquiry as I entered. I saw she wasvery beautiful. Her delicately moulded features were perfect, and uponher cheeks was the fresh bloom of youth. I judged her to be abouttwenty-five, with slim, narrow-waisted, graceful figure, eyes of softdark brown, well-defined brows and tiny shell-like ears. Her air andmanner was of the _chic_ Parisienne, rather than the Londoner. Theinstant our gaze met I saw that she was a woman of exquisite sweetness--perhaps one of the most attractive I had ever seen in all my widewanderings over the face of the globe.
"This lady desires to see you, Mr Leaf," explained the landlady'sdaughter. "She has called with regard to our friend, Signor Massari."
I bowed to her, and as I did so she said quickly in English:--
"I am in active search of Signor Massari, and have come
post-hasteacross Europe in order to find him. This lady says he has been here,but has left. You, I understand, speak Italian and have had severalconversations with him?"
I glanced quickly at Miss Gilbert. She had not told the visitor the sadtruth, therefore I was compelled to sustain the fiction that the deadman had left.
The landlady's daughter, apparently unable to further evade hervisitor's eager questions, excused herself and left us alone together.
The instant she had gone the visitor rose with a quick _frou-frou_ ofsilken underskirts, and closing the door turned to me with a deepearnest look, saying in a low voice scarcely above a whisper:--
"Let me confess the truth, sir! I am in a most deadly peril, and yetutterly defenceless. I have come direct from Rome in order to overtakethe man who
The Mysterious Mr. Miller Page 3
