The Mysterious Mr. Miller

by William Le Queux

no strangers to the place.

  I would have given worlds to have been able to get a peep behind thatclosed door.

  I was, however, forced to remain idling up and down the street, watchedand commented upon by the groups of women gossiping at their doors, andscowled at by the men who seemed to lurk smoking in the shadows. Theyrecognised by my clothes and my walk that I was a _forestiero_, astranger, and wondered probably whether I was not an agent of police.

  After half an hour Miller and his friend came out, accompanied by ayoung girl, hatless, as is the mode among the people, and with a brightyellow scarf twisted around her neck. She was about seventeen,good-looking, wore big gold ear-rings and showed an even set of whiteteeth as she spoke to Miller and laughed.

  Together they set off along the Lugo Tevere, crossed the Ponte S.Angelo, and plunged into that labyrinth of narrow dirty streets that laybetween the river and St Peter's. Presently, in a dark street off theBorgo Pia, the girl left them, and halting they stood talking togetherafter lighting cigarettes.

  The girl hurried on and was lost in the darkness, yet they wereevidently awaiting her return.

  My own position was a difficult one, for I feared that at any momentGavazzi's quick eyes might detect me and point me out to Miller whowould recognise me. For fully a quarter of an hour the pair remainedthere, until at last the girl returned, bringing with her a young manabout twenty-two, a low-born swaggering young fellow who wore his softgrey hat askew, and walked with his hands in his pockets, a man ofdistinctly criminal type who had probably never done an honest day'swork in his life. By the light of the street lamp I saw that he boreacross his cheek an ugly cicatrice from an old knife-wound, and thatupon his chin was a mole upon which the hair was allowed to grow. Thelatter was significant--it was the mark of that powerful secret societyof criminals, the Camorra.

  The girl, who was probably his _inamorata_, introduced them, whereuponhe lifted his hat with his finger and thumb and swung it back upon hishead with a twist--an action by which one Camorrist betrays hisallegiance to the initiated.

  For a few moments they conversed together, then the girl, wishing thetrio _buona sera_, sped away, and passing me was again lost in thedarkness, while the men, walking together slowly, came on in mydirection. The doctor was conversing with the young man in lowwhispers, and it seemed to me that he was giving him certaininstructions. But I could not, of course, approach sufficiently near tooverhear what was said. Miller was listening, but said nothing, exceptwhen addressed by his friend.

  Outside the massive Castel S. Angelo there is a cab-rank, and all threeentered a closed cab.

  That there was some dark conspiracy in progress I could not doubt. Thepresence of that young swaggerer--a man capable of committing any crimeI could see--was distinctly suspicious. Besides they dare not be seenwith him; therefore they took a closed cab, the only one upon the rankon that hot night.

  They moved off across the bridge, and when they were a hundred yardsaway I got into one of the open cabs and told the driver to follow, forI was determined at all hazards to ascertain what cunning scheme was inprogress.

  Fortunately, on account of my linen suit being dirty, I had exchanged itfor one of dark blue serge, therefore I was not so conspicuous in thedarkness as was Miller. To my surprise they drove direct to the railwaystation, where they alighted and the doctor went to take tickets.Noticing this, I told my driver to jump down and overhear theirdestination, promising him five francs for the information.

  In a moment he was gone, while I minded his horse.

  Five minutes later he returned, saying:--

  "The Signore has taken three second-class tickets to Tivoli."

  Tivoli! What, I wondered, was their object in going out to Tivoli atthat hour?

  I watched them pass the barrier on to the platform; then I myself took aticket for the same destination, passed through, and entered an emptycompartment of the waiting train. I saw, however, that while Miller andhis friend were in a second-class carriage, the young man in the greyfelt hat was in a third-class compartment. They were evidently takingprecautions not to be seen in his company.

  I was sorely tempted to slip across to the police office and ask the_delegato_ to allow a detective to accompany me. Yet if I did this Ishould only be giving Miller into the hands of the police, and thusquite ruin all my chances of discovering the truth. No. If I wished tofind out what was in progress I was, I saw, compelled to continuefearless and alone.

  Something desperate was in progress, otherwise they would never havesought the services of that young Camorrist. Miller was far toogentlemanly a rascal to associate with common criminals.

  The train was a slow omnibus one, and it was past midnight before wedrew into the station of Tivoli. I held back, allowing all three toalight before me, and saw that, on the platform, they separated andpassed out singly, as though unacquainted. A detective was idling atthe barrier as is always the case in Italy, but their appearance did notattract him and they took the dark road leading towards the ancient townwhich in the daytime commands such beautiful views of Rome and theCampagna, the town that has always been a popular summer resort evensince the Augustan age when Maecenas, Hadrian and the Emperor Augustushimself had their villas there, and gave their marvellous fetes.

  As I followed the trio, who still walked separately, I could hear thequiet of the night was broken by the thunder of the giant waterfalls,for me a fortunate circumstance, as the sounds of my footsteps weredeadened. In Miller a strange transformation had been effected. He hadbeen conspicuous in his suit of white, yet now he was in dark clothes.He had adopted the trick often practised by malefactors of wearing onesuit over the other, so as to be able to enter a place wearing a lightsuit and gay-coloured scarf, and leave it three minutes afterwardsdressed entirely differently. He had simply slipped off his whitecotton suit while in the train and had either thrown it out of thewindow, or left it beneath the seat of the railway-carriage.

  Railway searchers and platelayers, even in England, find complete suitsof clothes more often than one would imagine.

  From the station at Tivoli the road to the town, part of the ancientValeria, runs down to the St Angelo Gate. There it branches out in twoways, one entering the town across a high bridge, and the othercontinuing up the hill and out into the country.

  The three men took this latter road, a winding tortuous one which led uppast an ancient castle and away to the heights behind. There were nolights, but the night was not exactly dark, and I could distinctly seethe white road before me and the figures moving forward. One had goneon rapidly in front, while the other two also walked separately asthough strangers.

  Suddenly I saw the figure nearest me leave the road and pass into avineyard. Then a few minutes later, as I went on, I lost sight of theother two and at the same time found that we had reached a splendid old_cinquecento_ villa, an enormous place the back of which abutted on tothe road. Its great square windows were closely barred as they had beenin those old turbulent days when every house had been a fortress, andfrom the great entrance gate with its crumbling stone lions on eitherside ran a long dark cypress avenue. The ponderous gate was coveredwith sheet iron so that I could see only the tops of the trees within.

  This was, I supposed, the Villa Verde, the country-house of the man whohad died unrecognised in the boarding-house in Shepherd's Bush.

  There was no door leading to the roadway save the great entrance gate.Through that Miller and his companions had certainly not passed,therefore I concluded that they had reached the house by a secret waythrough the vineyard.

  Careful to remain always in the shadow, and moving with greatestcaution, I retraced my steps, entered the vineyard at the point where Ihad seen one figure disappear, and after a few moments discovered anarrow path through the trailing richly laden vines which led through anopen gate to a small side door in a wing of the great old building.

  I tried it. The handle yielded. They had passed through there, withouta doubt!


  Should I enter there? Was I not perhaps risking my life in so doing?They were a desperate trio. I knew well my fate, if they discoveredthat I had learned their secret.

  I held my breath. Then with sudden resolve, I slowly pushed the dooropen and peered eagerly within.

  Next instant I drew back aghast.

  What I saw there staggered me. I was not prepared for it.

  I could distinctly hear my own heart beating within me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

  THE SECRET OF THE VILLA VERDE.

  The unexpected sight that met my eyes within that narrow stone passagewas truly horrifying.

  An oil lamp shed a faint light at the farther end of the narrowtunnel-like place, and revealed the body of a man lying in a heap insuch a position that I saw, in an instant, that some tragedy hadoccurred.

  Creeping forward I bent beside him and touched his hand. It was stillwarm, yet I saw across the stones a large dark pool--a pool of blood,and at the same moment discovered that it issued from an uglyknife-wound just over the heart.

  He was