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As We Forgive Them

by William Le Queux · English · Gutenberg #40997 · 393,921 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: As We Forgive Them

Author: William Le Queux


        
Release date: October 9, 2012 [eBook #40997]
                Most recently updated: January 16, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40997

Credits: Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AS WE FORGIVE THEM ***

As We Forgive Them, by William Le Queux.

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AS WE FORGIVE THEM, BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE STRANGER IN MANCHESTER.

"Dead!  And he's carried his secret with him to his grave!"

"Never!"

"But he has.  Look!  His jaw has dropped.  Can't you see the change,
man!"

"Then he's carried out his threat after all!"

"By Heaven, he has!  We've been fools, Reggie--utter idiots!"  I
whispered.

"So it seems.  I confess that I fully expected he'd tell us the truth
when he knew that the end had really come."

"Ah! you didn't know him as I did," I remarked bitterly.  "He had a will
of iron and a nerve of steel."

"Combined with the constitution of a horse, or he'd been dead long ago.
But we've been outwitted--cleanly outwitted by a dying man.  He defied
us, laughed at our ignorance to the very last."

"Blair was no fool.  He knew what knowledge of the truth meant to us--a
huge fortune.  So he simply kept his secret."

"And left us in penniless chagrin.  Well, although we've lost thousands,
Gilbert, I can't help admiring his dogged determination.  He went
through a lot, recollect, and he's been a good friend to us--very good--
so I suppose we really oughtn't to abuse him, however much we regret
that he didn't let us into his secret."

"Ah, if only those white lips could speak!  One word, and we'd both be
rich men," I said in regret, gazing upon the dead, white face, with its
closed eyes and closely clipped beard, lying there upon the pillow.

"He intended to hold his secret from the very first," remarked my tall
friend, Reginald Seton, folding his arms as he stood on the opposite
side of the bed.  "It isn't given to every man to make such a discovery
as he made.  It took him years to solve the problem, whatever it was;
but that he really succeeded in doing so we can't for a moment doubt."

"And his profit was over a million sterling," I remarked.

"More like two, at the very lowest estimate.  Recollect how, when we
first knew him, he was in dire want of a sovereign--and now?  Why, only
last week he gave twenty thousand to the Hospital Fund.  And all as the
result of solving the enigma which for so long we have tried to discover
in vain.  No, Gilbert, he hasn't played the square game by us.  We
assisted him, put him on his legs, and all that, and instead of
revealing to us the key to the secret which he discovered, and which
placed him among the wealthiest men of London, he point-blank refused,
even though he knew that he must die.  We lent him money in the old
days, financed him, kept Mab at school when he had no funds, and--"

"And he repaid us every penny--with interest," I interposed.  "Come;
don't let's discuss him here.  The secret is lost for ever, that's
enough."  And I drew the sheet over the poor dead face--the countenance
of Burton Blair, the man who, during the past five years, had been one
of London's mysteries.

A strange, adventurous life, a career more remarkable, perhaps, than
half those imagined by writers of romance, had been brought abruptly to
an end, while the secret of the source of his enormous wealth--the
secret which we both had for the past five years longed to share,
because we were in a sense justly entitled to participate in its
advantages--had gone with him to that bourne whence none return.

The apartment in which we stood was a small, rather well-furnished
bedroom in the _Queen's Hotel_, Manchester.  The window looked out upon
the dark facade of the Infirmary, while to that chamber of the dead
there came the roar and bustle of the traffic and trams in Piccadilly.
His story was assuredly one of the strangest that any man has ever told.
Its mystery, as will be seen, was absolutely bewildering.

The light of the cheerless February afternoon was quickly fading, and as
we turned softly to descend and inform the hotel manager of the fatal
termination of the seizure, I noticed that the dead man's suit-case
stood in the corner, and that his keys were still in it.

"We had better take possession of these," I remarked, locking the bag
and transferring the small bunch to my pocket.  "His executors will want
them."

Then we closed the door behind us, and going to the office imparted the
unwelcome intelligence that a death had occurred in the hotel.  The
manager was, however, quite prepared to learn such news, for, half an
hour before, the doctor had declared that the stranger could not live.
His case had been hopeless from the very first.

Briefly, the facts were as follows.  Burton Blair had bidden his
daughter Mabel farewell, left his house in Grosvenor Square on the
previous morning, and had taken the ten-thirty express from Euston to
Manchester, where he had said he had some private business to transact.
Just before the train arrived at Crewe, he suddenly became unwell, and
was discovered by one of the luncheon-car attendants in a state of
collapse in one of the first-class compartments.  Brandy and
restoratives being administered, he revived sufficiently to travel on to
Manchester, being assisted out of the train at London Road, and two
porters had helped him into a cab and accompanied him to the hotel,
where, on being put to bed, he again lapsed into unconsciousness.  A
doctor was called, but he could not diagnose the ailment, except that
the patient's heart was seriously affected and, that being so, a fatal
termination of the seizure might ensue.  Towards two o'clock next
morning, Blair, who had neither given his name nor told the hotel people
who he was, asked that both Seton and I should be telegraphed for, and
the result was that in anxious surprise we had both travelled up to
Manchester, where on arrival, an hour before, we had discovered our
friend to be in an utterly hopeless condition.

On entering the room we found the doctor, a young and rather pleasant
man named Glenn, in attendance.  Blair was conscious, and listened to
the medical opinion without flinching.  Indeed, he seemed rather to
welcome death than to dread it, for, when he heard that he was in such a
very critical condition, a faint smile crossed his pale, drawn features,
and he remarked--

"Every man must die, so it may as well be to-day as to-morrow."  Then,
turning to me, he added, "Gilbert, you are very good to come just to say
good-bye," and he put out his thin cold hand and grasped mine, while his
eyes fixed upon me with that strange, intent look that only comes into a
man's gaze when he is on the brink of the grave.

"It is a friend's duty, Burton," I answered, deeply in earnest.  "But
you must still hope.  Doctors are often mistaken.  Why, you've a
splendid constitution, haven't you?"

"Hardly ever had a day's illness since I was a kid," was the
millionaire's reply in a low, weak voice; "but this fit has bowled me
completely over."

We endeavoured to ascertain exactly how he was seized, but neither
Reggie not the doctor could gather anything tangible.

"I became faint all of a sudden, and I know nothing more," was all the
dying man would reply.  "But," he added, turning again to me, "don't
tell Mab till it's all over.  Poor girl!  My only regret is to leave
her.  You two fellows were so very good to her back in the old days, you
won't abandon her now, will you?" he implored, speaking slowly and with
very great difficulty, tears standing in his eyes.

"Certainly not, old chap," was my answer.  "If left alone she'll want
some one to advise her and to look after her interests."

"The scoundrelly lawyer chaps will do that," he snapped, with a strange
hardness in his voice, as though he entertained no love for his
solicitors.  "No, I want you to see that no man marries her for her
money--you understand?  Dozens of fellows are after her at this moment,
I know, but I'd rather see her dead than she should marry one of them.
She must marry for love--love, you hear?  Promise me, Gilbert, that that
you'll look after her, won't you?"

Still holding his hand, I promised.

That was the last word he uttered.  His pale lips twitched again, but no
sound came from them.  His glassy eyes were fixed upon me with a stony,
terrible stare, as though he were endeavouring to tell me something.

Perhaps he was revealing to me the great secret--the secret of how he
had solved the mystery of fortune and become worth over a million
sterling--perhaps he was speaking of Mab.  Which we knew not.  His
tongue refused to articulate, the silence of death was upon him.

Thus he passed away; and thus did I find myself bound to a promise which
I intended to fulfil, even though he had not revealed to us his secret,
as we confidently expected.  We believed that, knowing himself to be
dying, he had summoned us there to impart that knowledge which would
render us both rich beyond the dreams of avarice.  But in this we had
been most bitterly disappointed.  For five years, I confess, we had
waited, expecting that he would some day share some of his wealth with
us in return for those services we had rendered him in the past.  Yet
now it seemed he had coolly disregarded his indebtedness to us, and at
the same time imposed upon me a duty by no means easy--the guardianship
of his only daughter Mabel.

CHAPTER TWO.

CONTAINS CERTAIN MYSTERIOUS FACTS.

I ought here to declare that, having regard to all the curious and
mysterious circumstances of the past, the situation was, to me, far from
satisfactory.  As we strolled together along Market Street that cold
night discussing the affair, rather than remain in the public room of
the hotel, Reggie suggested that the secret might be written somewhere
and sealed up among the dead man's effects.  But in that case, unless it
were addressed to us, it would be opened by the persons the dying man
had designated as "those scoundrelly lawyer chaps," and in all
probability be turned by them to profitable account.

His solicitors were, we knew, Messrs. Leighton, Brown and Leighton, an
eminently respectable firm in Bedford Row; therefore we sent a telegram
from the Central Office informing them of their client's sudden death,
and requesting that one of the firm should at once come to Manchester to
attend the inquest which Doctor Glenn had declared would be necessary.
As the deceased man had expressed a wish that Mabel should, for the
present, remain in ignorance, we did not inform her of the tragic
occurrence.

Curiosity prompted us to ascend again to the dead man's chamber and
examine the contents of his kit-bag and suit-case, but, beyond his
clothes, a cheque-book and about ten pounds in gold, we found nothing.
I think that we both half expected to discover the key to that
remarkable secret which he had somehow obtained, yet it was hardly to be
imagined that he would carry such a valuable asset about with him in his
luggage.

In the pocket of a small writing-book which formed part of the fittings
of the suit-case I discovered several letters, all of which I examined
and found them to be of no importance--save one, a dirty, ill-written
note in uneducated Italian, which contained some passages which struck
me as curious.

Indeed, so strange was the tenor of the whole communication that, with
Reggie's connivance, I resolved to take possession of it and make
further inquiry.

There were many things about Burton Blair that had puzzled us for years,
therefore we were both determined, if possible, to elucidate the curious
mystery that had surrounded him, even if he had carried to his grave the
secret of his enormous fortune.

We alone in all the world knew the existence of the secret, only we were
in ignorance of the necessary key by which the source of riches could be
opened.  The manner in which he had gained his great wealth was a
mystery to every one, even to his daughter Mabel.  In the City and in
Society he was vaguely believed by some to possess large interests in
mines, and to be a successful speculator in stocks, while others
declared that he was the ground-landlord of at least two large cities in
America, and yet others were positive that certain concessions from the
Ottoman Government had brought him his gold.

All were, however, mistaken in their surmises.  Burton Blair possessed
not an acre of land; he had not a shilling in any public company; he was
not interested in either Government concessions or industrial
enterprises.  No.  The source of the great wealth by which he had, in
five years, been able to purchase, decorate and furnish in princely
manner one of the finest houses in Grosvenor Square, keep three of the
most expensive Panhards, motoring being his hobby, and rent that fine
old Jacobean mansion Mayvill Court, in Herefordshire, came from a source
which nobody knew or even suspected.  His were mysterious millions.

"I wonder if anything will come out at the inquest?" queried Reggie,
later that evening.  "His lawyers undoubtedly know nothing."

"He may have left some paper which reveals the truth," I answered.  "Men
who are silent in life often commit their secrets to paper."

"I don't think Burton ever did."

"He may have done so for Mabel's benefit, remember."

"Ah! by Jove!" gasped my friend, "I never thought of that.  If he wished
to provide for her, he would leave his secret with some one whom he
could implicitly trust.  Yet he trusted us--up to a certain point.  We
are the only ones who have any real knowledge of the state of affairs,"
and my tall, long-legged, fair-haired friend, who stood six feet in his
stockings, the picture of the easygoing muscular Englishman, although
engaged in the commerce of feminine frippery, stopped with a low grunt
of dissatisfaction, and carefully lit a fresh cigar.

We passed a dismal evening strolling about the main streets of
Manchester, feeling that in Burton Blair we had lost a friend, but when
on the following morning we met Herbert Leighton, the solicitor, in the
hall of the _Queen's_, and had a long consultation with him, the mystery
surrounding the dead man became considerably heightened.

"You both knew my late client very well, indeed," the solicitor
remarked, after some preliminaries.  "Now, are you aware of the
existence of any one who would profit by his sudden decease?"

"That's a curious question," I remarked.  "Why?"

"Well, the fact is this," explained the dark, sharp-featured man, with
some hesitation.  "I have every reason to believe that he has been the
victim of foul play."

"Foul play!"  I gasped.  "You surely don't think that he was murdered?
Why, my dear fellow, that couldn't be.  He was taken ill in the train,
and died in bed in our presence."

The solicitor, whose face had now become graver, merely shrugged his
narrow shoulders, and said--"We must, of course, await the result of the
inquest, but from information in my possession I feel confident that
Burton Blair did not die a natural death."

That same evening the Coroner held his inquiry in a private room in the
hotel, and, according to the two doctors who had made the postmortem
earlier in the day, death was due entirely to natural causes.  It was
discovered that Blair had naturally a weak heart, and that the fatal
termination had been accelerated by the oscillation of the train.

There was absolutely nothing whatever to induce any suspicion of foul
play, therefore the jury returned a verdict in accordance with the
medical evidence that death was due to natural causes, and an order was
given for the removal of the body to London for burial.

An hour after the inquest I took Mr. Leighton aside and said--

"As you know, I have for some years been one of the late Mr. Blair's
most intimate friends, and, therefore, I am naturally very much
interested to know what induced you to suspect foul play."

"My suspicions were well based," was his rather enigmatical answer.

"Upon what?"

"Upon the fact that my client himself had been threatened, and that,
although he told no one and laughed at my suggested precautions, he has
lived in daily dread of assassination."

"Curious!"  I ejaculated.  "Very curious!"

I told him nothing of that remarkable letter I had secured from the dead
man's luggage.  If what he said were really true, then there was a very
extraordinary secret in the death of Burton Blair, equally with that of
his strange, romantic and mysterious life--a secret that was
inscrutable, yet absolutely unique.

It will be necessary, I think, to fully explain the curious
circumstances which first brought us into contact with Burton Blair, and
to describe the mysterious events which followed our acquaintanceship.
From beginning to end the whole affair is so remarkable that many who
read this record of facts may be inclined to doubt my veracity.  To
such, I would at the very outset suggest that they make inquiries in
London, in that little world of adventurers, speculators, money-lenders
and money-losers known as "the City," where I feel sure they will have
no difficulty in learning even further interesting details regarding the
man of mysterious millions whom this narrative partially concerns.

And certainly the true facts concerning him will, I do not hesitate to
say, be found to form one of the most remarkable romances in modern
life.

CHAPTER THREE.

IN WHICH A STRANGE STORY IS TOLD.

In order to put the plain, unvarnished truth before you, I must, in the
first place, explain that I, Gilbert Greenwood, was a man of small
means, having been left an annuity by an ascetic Baptist, but somewhat
prosperous aunt, while Reginald Seton I had known ever since we had been
lads together at Charterhouse.  The son of George Seton, a lace
warehouseman of Cannon Street and Alderman of the City of London, Reggie
had been left at twenty-five with a heavy burden of debt and an
old-fashioned, high-class but rapidly declining business.  Still,
brought up to the lace trade in a factory at Nottingham, Reggie boldly
followed in his father's footsteps, and by dint of close attention to
business succeeding in rubbing along sufficiently well to avoid the
bankruptcy court, and to secure an income of a few hundreds a year.

Both of us were still bachelors, and we chummed in comfortable chambers
in a newly-constructed block of flats in Great Russell Street, while,
being also fond of fox-hunting, the only sport we could afford, we also
rented a cheap, old-fashioned house in a rural village called Helpstone,
eighty miles from London, in the Fitzwilliam country.  Here we spent
each winter, usually being "out" two days a week.

Neither of us being well off, we had, as may be imagined, to practise a
good deal of economy, for fox-hunting is an expensive sport to the poor
man.  Nevertheless, we were both fortunate in possessing a couple of
good horses apiece, and by dint of a little squeezing here and there,
were able to indulge in those exhilarating runs across country which
cause the blood to tingle with excitement, and rejuvenate all who take
part in them.

Reggie was sometimes kept in town by the exigencies of his deal in
torchon, Maltese and Honiton, therefore I frequently lived alone in the
old-fashioned, ivy-covered house, with Glave, my man, to look after me.

One bitterly cold evening in January Reggie was absent in London, and I,
having been hunting all day, was riding home utterly fagged out.  The
meet that morning had been at Kate's Cabin, over in Huntingdonshire, and
after two good runs I had found myself beyond Stilton, eighteen miles
from home.  Still, the scent had been excellent, and we had had good
sport, therefore I took a pull at my flask and rode forward across
country in the gathering gloom.

Fortunately I found the river fordable at Water Newton mill, a fact
which saved me the long detour by Wansford, and then when within a mile
of home I allowed my horse to walk, as I always did, in order that he
might cool down before going to his stable.  The dusk of the short
afternoon was just deepening into night, and the biting wind cut me like
a knife as I passed the crossroads about half a mile from Helpstone
village, jogging along steadily, when of a sudden a man's burly figure
loomed out of the shadow of the high, holly hedge, and a deep voice
exclaimed--

"Pardon me, sir, but I'm a stranger in these parts, and my daughter here
has fainted.  Is there a house near?"

Then, as I drew near, I saw huddled upon a heap of stones at the
roadside the slim, fragile form of a young girl of about sixteen,
wrapped in a thick, dark-coloured cloak, while in the glimmer of light
that remained I distinguished that the man who was addressing me was a
bluff, rather well-spoken, dark-bearded fellow of about forty-five or
so, in a frayed suit of blue serge and peaked cap that gave him
something of the appearance of a seafarer.  His face was seamed and
weatherbeaten, and his broad, powerful jaws betokened a strength of
character and dogged determination.

"Has your daughter been taken ill?"  I inquired, when I had thoroughly
examined him.

"Well, the fact is we've walked a long way to-day, and I think she's
done up.  She became dazed like about half an hour ago, and when she sat
down she fell insensible."

"She mustn't stay here," I remarked, as the fact became plain that both
father and daughter were tramps.  "She'll get frozen to death.  My house
is over yonder.  I'll ride on and bring back some one to help carry
her."

The man commenced to thank me, but I touched my horse with the spur, and
was soon in the stableyard calling for Glave to accompany me back to the
spot where I had left the wayfarers.

A quarter of an hour later we had arranged the insensible girl on a
couch in my warm, snug sitting-room, had forced some brandy down her
throat, and she had opened her eyes wonderingly, and looked round with
childlike temerity upon her unfamiliar surroundings.

Her gaze met mine, and I saw that her countenance was undeniably
beautiful, of that dark, half-tragic type, her eyes rendered the more
luminous by the death-like pallor of her countenance.  The features were
well-moulded, refined and handsome in every line, and as she addressed
her father, inquiring what had occurred, I detected that she was no mere
waif of the highway, but, on the contrary, highly intelligent, well
mannered and well educated.

Her father, in a few deep words, explained our abrupt meeting and my
hospitality, whereupon she smiled upon me sweetly and uttered words of
thanks.

"It must have been the intense cold, I think," she added.  "Somehow I
felt benumbed all at once, and my head swam so that I couldn't stand.
But it is really very kind indeed of you.  I'm so sorry that we've
disturbed you like this."

I assured her that my only wish was for her complete recovery, and as I
spoke I could not conceal from myself that her beauty was very
remarkable.  Although young, and her figure as yet not fully developed,
her face was nevertheless one of the most perfect I had ever seen.  From
the first moment my eyes fell upon her, I found her indescribably
charming.  That she was utterly exhausted was rendered plain by the
painful, uneasy manner in which she moved upon her couch.  Her rusty
black skirt and thick boots were muddy and travel-stained, and by the
manner she pushed the tangled mass of dark hair from her brow I knew
that her head ached.

Glave, in no good mood at the introduction of tramps, entered,
announcing that my dinner was ready; but she firmly, yet with sweet
grace, declined my invitation to eat, saying that if I would permit her
she would rather remain alone on the couch before the fire for half an
hour longer.  Therefore I sent her some hot soup by old Mrs. Axford, our
cook, while her father, having washed his hands, accompanied me to the
diningroom.

He seemed half-famished, taciturn and reserved at first, but presently,
when he had judged my character sufficiently, he explained that his name
was Burton Blair, that in his absence abroad he had lost his wife ten
years before, and that little Mab was his only child.  As his appearance
denoted, he had been at sea the greater part of his life and held a
master's certificate, but of late he had been living ashore.

"I've been home these three years now," he went on, "and I've had a
pretty rough time of it, I can tell you.  Poor Mab!  I wouldn't have
minded had it not been for her.  She's a brick, she is, just as her poor
dear mother was.  She's done three years of semi-starvation, and yet
she's never once complained.  She knows my character by now, she knows
that when once Burton Blair makes up his mind to do a thing, by Gad! he
does it," and he set those square jaws of his hard, while a look of
determination and dogged persistency came into his eyes, the fiercest I
had ever seen in any man.

"But, Mr. Blair, why did you leave the sea to starve ashore?"  I
inquired, my curiosity aroused.

"Because--well, because I had a reason--a strong reason," was his
hesitating reply.  "You see me homeless and hungry to-night," laughed
Burton Blair, bitterly, "but to-morrow I may be a millionaire!"

And his face assumed a mysterious, sphinx-like expression which sorely
puzzled me.

Many and many a time since then have I recollected those strange,
prophetic words of his as he sat at my table, shabby, unkempt and
ravenously hungry, a worn-out, half-frozen tramp from the highroad, who,
absurd as it then seemed, held the strong belief that ere long he would
be the possessor of millions.

I remember well how I smiled at his vague assertion.  Every man who
falls low in the social scale clings to the will-o'-the-wisp belief that
his luck will change, and that by some vagary of fortune he will come up
again smiling.  Hope is never dead within the ruined man.

By dint of some careful questions I tried to obtain further information
regarding this confident hope of wealth which he entertained, but he
would tell me nothing--absolutely nothing.

He accepted a cigar after he had dined well, took brandy with his
coffee, and smoked with the air of a contented man who had no single
thought or care in the world--a man who knew exactly what the future
held for him.

Thus, from the very first, Burton Blair was a mystery.  On rejoining
Mabel we found her sleeping peacefully, utterly fagged out.  Therefore I
induced him to remain beneath my roof that night, in order that she
might rest, and, returning to the dining-room, her father and I sat
together smoking and talking for several hours.

He told me of his hard, rough years at sea, of strange adventures in
savage lands, of a narrow escape from death at the hands of a band of
natives in the Cameroons, and of how, for three years, he acted as
captain of a river-steamer up the Congo, one of the pioneers of
civilisation.  He related his thrilling adventures calmly and naturally,
without any bragging, but just in that plain, matter-of-fact manner
which revealed to me that he was one of those men who love an
adventurous life because of its perils and its vicissitudes.

"And now I'm tramping the turnpikes of England," he added, laughing.
"You must, no doubt, think it very strange, Mr. Greenwood, but to tell
you the truth I am actively prosecuting a rather curious quest, the
successful issue of which will one day bring me wealth beyond my wildest
dreams.  See!" he added, with a strange wild look in his great dark
eyes, as swiftly undoing his blue guernsey and delving beneath it he
drew forth a square, flat piece of soiled and well-worn chamois leather
in which there seemed to be sewed some precious document or other.
"Look!  My secret lies here.  Some day I shall discover the key to it--
maybe to-morrow or next day, or next year.  When, it is quite
immaterial.  The result will be the same.  My years of continuous search
and travel will be rewarded--and I shall be rich, and the world will
wonder!"  And, laughing contentedly, almost triumphantly within himself,
he carefully replaced his precious document in his chest, and, rising,
stood with his back to the fire in the attitude of a man entirely
confident of what was written in the Book of Fate.

That midnight scene in all its strange, romantic detail, that occasion
when the tired wayfarer and his daughter spent their first night as my
guests, rose before me when, on that bright, cold afternoon following
the inquest up at Manchester, I alighted from a cab in front of the big
white house in Grosvenor Square, and received word of Carter, the solemn
manservant, that Miss Mabel was at home.

The magnificent mansion, with its exquisite decorations, its genuine
Louis Quatorze furniture, its valuable pictures and splendid examples of
seventeenth century statuary, home of one to whom expense was surely of
no account, was assuredly sufficient testimony that the shabby wayfarer
who had uttered those words in my narrow little dining-room five years
before had made no idle boast.

The secret sewed within that dirty bag of wash-leather, whatever it may
have been, had already realised over a million, and was still realising
enormous sums, until death had now so suddenly put an end to its
exploitation.  The mystery of it all was beyond solution; and the enigma
was complete.

These and other reflections swept through my mind as I followed the
footman up the wide marble staircase and was shown ceremoniously into
the great gold and white drawing-room, the walls of which were panelled
with pale rose silk, the four large windows affording a wide view across
the Square.  Those priceless paintings, those beautiful cabinets and
unique _bric-a-brac_--all were purchased with the proceeds from that
mysterious secret, the secret which had in that short space of five
years been the means of transforming a homeless, down-at-heel wanderer
into a millionaire.

Gazing aimlessly across the grey Square with its leafless trees, I stood
undecided how best to break the sad news, when a slight _frou-frou_ of
silk swept behind me, and, turning quickly, I confronted the dead man's
daughter, looking now, at twenty-three, far more sweet, graceful and
womanly than in that first hour of our strange meeting by the wayside
long ago.

But her black gown, her trembling form, and her pale, tear-stained
cheeks told me in an instant that this woman in my charge had already
learnt the painful truth.  She halted before me, a beautiful, tragic
figure, her tiny white hand nervously clutching the back of one of the
gilt chairs for support.

"I know!" she exclaimed in a broken voice, quite unnatural to her, her
eyes fixed upon me, "I know, Mr. Greenwood, why you have called.  The
truth has been told to me by Mr. Leighton an hour ago.  Ah! my poor dear
father!" she sighed, the words catching in her throat as she burst into
tears.  "Why did he go to Manchester?  His enemies have triumphed, just
as I have all along feared they would.  Yet, great-hearted as he was, he
believed ill of no man.  He refused always to heed my warnings, and
laughed at all my apprehensions.  Yet, alas! the ghastly truth is now
only too plain.  My poor father!" she gasped, her handsome face blanched
to the lips.  "He is dead--and his secret is out!"

CHAPTER FOUR.

WHICH TRAVERSES DANGEROUS GROUND.

"Are you really suspicious, Mabel, that your father has been the victim
of foul play?"  I inquired quickly of the dead man's daughter, standing
pale and unnerved before me.

"I am," was her direct, unhesitating answer.  "You know his story, Mr.
Greenwood; you know how he carried with him everywhere something he had
sewed in a piece of chamois leather; something which was his most
precious possession.  Mr. Leighton tells me that it is missing."

"That is unfortunately so," I said.  "We all three searched for it among
his clothes and in his luggage; we made inquiry of the luncheon-car
attendant who found him insensible in the railway carriage, of the
porters who conveyed him to the hotel, of every one, in fact, but can
find no trace of it whatsoever."

"Because it has been deliberately stolen," she remarked.

"Then your theory is that he has been assassinated in order to conceal
the theft?"

She nodded in the affirmative, her face still hard and pale.

"But there is no evidence whatever of foul play, recollect," I
exclaimed.  "Both medical men, two of the best in Manchester, declared
that death was entirely due to natural causes."

"I care nothing for what they say.  The little sachet which my poor
father sewed with his own hands, and guarded so carefully all these
years, and which for some curious reason he would neither trust in any
bank nor in a safe deposit vault, is missing.  His enemies have gained
possession of it, just as I felt confident they would."

"I recollect him showing me that little bag of wash-leather on the first
night of our acquaintance," I said.  "He then declared that what was
contained therein would bring him wealth--and it certainly has done," I
added, glancing round that magnificent apartment.

"It brought him wealth, but not happiness, Mr. Greenwood," she responded
quickly.  "That packet, the contents of which I have never seen, he has
carried with him in his pocket or suspended round his neck ever since it
first came into his possession years ago.  In all his clothes he had a
special pocket in which to carry it, while at night he wore it in a
specially made belt which was locked around his waist.  I think he
regarded it as a sort of charm, or talisman, which, besides bringing him
his great fortune, also preserved him from all ills.  The reason of this
I cannot tell."

"Did you never ascertain the nature of the document which he considered
so precious?"

"I tried to do so many times, but he would never reveal it to me.  `It
was his secret,' he would say, and no more."

Both Reggie and I had, times without number, endeavoured to learn what
the mysterious packet really contained, but had been no more successful
than the charming girl now standing before me.  Burton Blair was a
strange man, both in actions and in words, very reserved regarding his
own affairs, and yet, curiously enough, with the advent of prosperity he
had become a prince of good fellows.

"But who were his enemies?"  I inquired.

"Ah! of that I am likewise in utter ignorance," was her reply.  "As you
know, during the past year or two, like all rich men he has been
surrounded by adventurers and parasites of all sorts, whom Ford, his
secretary, has kept at arm's length.  It may be that the existence of
the precious packet was known, and that my poor father has fallen a
victim to some foul plot.  At least, that is my firm idea."

"If so, the police should certainly be informed," I said.  "It is true
that the wash-leather sachet which he showed me on the night of our
first meeting is now missing, for we have all made the most careful
search for it, but in vain.  Yet what could its possession possibly
profit any one if the key to what was contained there is wanting?"

"But was not this key, whatever it was, also in my father's hands?"
queried Mabel Blair.  "Was it not the discovery of that very key which
gave us all these possessions?" she asked, with the sweet womanliness
that was her most engaging characteristic.

"Exactly.  But surely your father, shrewd and cautious as he always was,
would never carry upon his person both problem and key together!  I
can't really believe that he'd do such a foolish thing as that."

"Nor do I.  Although I was his only child, and his confidante in
everything relating to his life, there was one thing he persistently
kept from me, and that was the nature of his secret.  Sometimes I have
found myself suspecting that it was not an altogether creditable one--
indeed, one that a father dare not reveal to his daughter.  And yet no
one has ever accused him of dishonesty or of double-dealing.  At other
times I have noticed in his face and manner an air of distinct mystery
which has caused me to believe that the source of our unlimited wealth
was some curious and romantic one, which to the world would be regarded
as entirely incredible.  One night, indeed, as we sat here at table
after dinner, and while smoking, he had been telling me about my poor
mother who died in lodgings in a back street in Manchester while he was
absent on a voyage to the West Coast of Africa, he declared that if
London knew the source of his income it would be astounded.  `But,' he
added, `it is a secret--a secret I intend to carry with me to the
grave.'"

Strangely enough he had uttered those very same words to me a couple of
years before, when one night he had sat before the fire in my rooms in
Great Russell Street, and I had referred to his marvellous stroke of
good fortune.  He had died, and he had either carried out his threat of
destroying that evidence of his secret in the shape of the well-worn
chamois leather bag, or else it had been ingeniously stolen from him.

The curious, ill-written letter I had secured from my friend's luggage,
while puzzling me had aroused certain suspicions that hitherto I had not
entertained.  Of these I, of course, told Mabel nothing, for I did not
wish to cause her any greater pain.  In the years we had been acquainted
we had always been good friends.  Although Reggie was fifteen years her
senior, and I thirteen years older than she, I believe she regarded both
of us as big brothers.

Our friendship had commenced when, finding Burton Blair, the seafaring
tramp, practically-starving as he was, we clubbed together from our
small means and put her to a finishing school at Bournemouth.  To allow
so young and delicate a girl to tramp England aimlessly in search of
some vague and secret information which seemed to be her erratic
father's object, was, we decided, an utter impossibility; therefore,
following that night of our first meeting at Helpstone, Burton and his
daughter remained our guests for a week, and, after many consultations
and some little economies, we were at last successful in placing Mabel
at school, a service for which we later received her heartfelt thanks.

She was utterly worn out, poor child.  Poverty had already set its
indelible stamp upon her sweet face, and her beauty was beginning to
fade beneath that burden of disappointment and erratic wandering when we
had so fortunately discovered her, and been able to rescue her from the
necessity of tramping footsore over those endless, pitiless highways.

Contrary to our expectation it was quite a long time before we could
induce Blair to allow his daughter to return to school, for, as a matter
of fact, both father and daughter were entirely devoted to one another.
Nevertheless, in the end we triumphed, and later, when the bluff,
bearded wayfarer came to his own, he did not forget to return thanks to
us in a very substantial manner.  Indeed, our present improved
circumstances were due to him, for not only had he handed a cheque to
Reggie sufficient to pay the whole of the liabilities of the Cannon
Street lace business, but to me, on my birthday three years ago, he had
sent, enclosed in a cheap, silver cigarette case, a draft upon his
bankers for a sum sufficient to provide me with a very comfortable
little annuity.

Burton Blair never forgot his friends--neither did he ever forgive an
unkind action.  Mabel was his idol, his only real confidante, and yet it
seemed more than strange that she knew absolutely nothing of the
mysterious source of his colossal income.

Together we sat for over an hour in that great drawing-room, the very
splendour of which spoke mystery.  Mrs. Percival, the pleasant,
middle-aged widow of a naval surgeon, who was Mabel's chaperon and
companion, entered, but left us quickly, much upset by the tragic news.
Presently, when I told Mabel of my promise to her father, a slight blush
suffused her pale cheeks.

"It is really awfully good of you to trouble over my affairs, Mr.
Greenwood," she said, glancing at me, and then dropping her eyes
modestly.  "I suppose in future I shall have to consider you as my
guardian," and she laughed lightly, twisting her ring around her finger.

"Not as your legal guardian," I answered.  "Your father's lawyers will,
no doubt, act in that capacity, but rather as your protector and your
friend."

"Ah!" she replied sadly, "I suppose I shall require both, now that poor
dad is dead."

"I have been your friend for over five years, Mabel, and I hope you will
still allow me to carry out my promise to your father," I said, standing
before her and speaking in deep earnestness.

"There must, however, at the outset be a clear and distinct
understanding between us.  Therefore permit me for one moment to speak
to you candidly, as a man should to a woman who is his friend.  You,
Mabel, are young, and--well, you are, as you know, very good-looking--"

"No, really, Mr. Greenwood," she cried, interrupting me and blushing at
my compliment, "it is too bad of you.  I'm sure--"

"Hear me out, please," I continued with mock severity.  "You are young,
you are very good-looking, and you are rich; you therefore possess the
three necessary attributes which render a woman eligible in these modern
days when sentiment is held of such little account.  Well, people who
will watch our intimate friendship will, with ill-nature, declare, no
doubt, that I am seeking to marry you for your money.  I am quite sure
the world will say this, but what I want you to promise is to at once
refute such a statement.  I desire that you and I shall be firm friends,
just as we have ever been, without any thought of affection.  I may
admire you--I confess, now, that I have always admired you--but with a
man of my limited means love for you is entirely out of the question.
Understand that I do not wish to presume upon the past, now that your
father is dead and you are alone.  Understand, too, from the very outset
that I now give you the hand of firm friendship as I would give it to
Reggie, my old schoolfellow and best friend, and that in future I shall
safeguard your interests as though they were my own."  And I held out my
hands to her.

For a moment she hesitated, for my words had apparently caused her the
most profound surprise.

"Very well," she faltered, glancing for an instant up to my face.  "It
is a bargain--if you wish it to be so."

"I wish, Mabel, to carry out the promise I made to your father," I said.
"As you know, I am greatly indebted to him for much generosity, and I
wish, therefore, as a mark of gratitude, to stand in his place and
protect his daughter--yourself."

"But were we not, in the first place, both indebted to you?" she said.
"If it had not been for Mr. Seton and yourself I might have wandered on
until I died by the wayside."

"For what was your father searching?"  I asked.  "He surely told you?"

"No, he never did.  I am in entire ignorance of the reason of his three
years of tramping up and down England.  He had a distinct object, which
he accomplished, but what it actually was he would never reveal to me."

"It was, I suppose, in connexion with that document he always carried?"

"I believe it was," was her response.  Then she added, returning to her
previous observations, "Why speak of your indebtedness to him, Mr.
Greenwood, when I know full well how you sold your best horse in order
to pay my school fees at Bournemouth, and that you could not hunt that
season in consequence?  You denied yourself the only little pleasure you
had, in order that I might be well cared for."

"I forbid you to mention that again," I said quickly.  "Recollect we are
now friends, and between friends there can be no question of
indebtedness."

"Then you must not talk of any little service my father rendered to
you," she laughed.  "Come, now, I shall be unruly if you don't keep to
your part of the bargain!"

And so we were compelled at that juncture to cry quits, and we
recommenced our friendship on a firm and perfectly well-defined basis.

Yet how strange it was!  The beauty of Mabel Blair, as she lounged there
before me in that magnificent home that was now hers, was surely
sufficient to turn the head of any man who was not a Chancery Judge or a
Catholic Cardinal--different indeed from the poor, half-starved girl
whom I had first seen exhausted and fallen by the roadside in the winter
gloom.

CHAPTER FIVE.

IN WHICH THE MYSTERY BECOMES CONSIDERABLY INCREASED.

That the precious document, or whatever it was, sewn up in the
wash-leather which the dead man had so carefully guarded through all
those years was now missing was, in itself, a very suspicious
circumstance, while Mabel's vague but distinct apprehensions, which she
either would not or could not define, now aroused my suspicions that
Burton Blair had been the victim of foul play.

Immediately after leaving her I therefore drove to Bedford Row and held
another consultation with Leighton, to whom I explained my grave fears.

"As I have already explained, Mr. Greenwood," responded the solicitor,
leaning back in his padded chair and regarding me gravely through his
glasses, "I believe that my client did not die a natural death.  There
was some mystery in his life, some strange romantic circumstance which,
unfortunately, he never thought fit to confide to me.  He held a secret,
he told me, and by knowledge of that secret, he obtained his vast
wealth.  Only half an hour ago I made a rough calculation of the present
value of his estate, and at the lowest, I believe it will be found to
amount to over two and a half millions.  The whole of this, I may tell
you in confidence, goes unreservedly to his daughter, with the exception
of several legacies, which include ten thousand each to Mr. Seton and to
yourself, two thousand to Mrs. Percival, and some small sums to the
servants.  But," he added, "there is a clause in the will which is very
puzzling, and which closely affects yourself.  As we both suspect foul
play, I think I may as well at once show it to you without waiting for
my unfortunate client's burial and the formal reading of his will."

Then he rose, and from a big black deed box lettered "Burton Blair,
Esquire," he took out the dead man's will, and, opening it, showed me a
passage which read:--

Ten: "I give and bequeath to Gilbert Greenwood of The Cedars, Helpstone,
the small bag of chamois leather that will be found upon me at the time
of my death, in order that he may profit by what is contained therein,
and as recompense for certain valuable services rendered to me.  Let him
recollect always this rhyme--

"`_Henry the Eighth was a knave to his queens, He'd, one short of
seven--and nine or ten scenes_!'

"And let him well and truly preserve the secret from every man, just as
I have done."

That was all.  A strange clause surely!  Burton Blair had, after all,
actually bequeathed his secret to me, the secret that had brought him
his colossal wealth!  Yet it was already lost--probably stolen by his
enemies.

"That's a curious doggerel," the solicitor smiled.  "But poor Blair
possessed but little literary culture, I fear.  He knew more about the
sea than poetry.  Yet, after all, it seems a tantalising situation that
you should be left the secret of the source of my client's enormous
fortune, and that it should be stolen from you in this manner."

"We had, I think, better consult the police, and explain our
suspicions," I said, in bitter chagrin that the chamois sachet should
have fallen into other hands.

"I entirely agree with you, Mr. Greenwood.  We will go together to
Scotland Yard and get them to institute inquiries.  If Mr. Blair was
actually murdered, then his assassination was accomplished in a most
secret and remarkable manner, to say the least.  But there is one
further clause in the will which is somewhat disturbing, and that is
with regard to his daughter Mabel.  The testator has appointed some
person of whom I have never heard--a man called Paolo Melandrini, an
Italian, apparently living in Florence, to be her secretary and the
manager of her affairs."

"What!"  I cried, amazed.  "An Italian to be her secretary!  Who is he?"

"A person with whom I am not acquainted; whose name, indeed, has never
been mentioned to me by my client.  He merely dictated it to me when I
drafted the will."

"But the thing's absurd!"  I exclaimed.  "Surely you can't let an
unknown foreigner, who may be an adventurer for all we know, have
control of all her money?"

"I fear there's no help for it," replied Leighton, gravely.  "It is
written here, and we shall be compelled to give notice to this man,
whoever he is, of his appointment at a salary of five thousand pounds a
year."

"And will he really have control of her affairs?"

"Absolutely.  Indeed, the whole estate is left to her on condition that
she accepts this fellow as her secretary and confidential adviser."

"Why, Blair must have been mad!"  I exclaimed.  "Has Mabel any knowledge
of this mysterious Italian?"

"She has never heard of him."

"Well, in that case, I think that, before he is informed of poor Blair's
death and the good fortune in store for him, we ought at least to find
out who and what he is.  We can in any case, keep a watchful eye on him,
and see that he doesn't trick Mabel out of her money."

The lawyer sighed, wiped his glasses slowly, and said--

"He will have the entire management of everything, therefore it will be
difficult to know what goes on, or how much he puts into his own
pocket."

"But whatever could possess Blair to insert such a mad clause as that?
Didn't you point out the folly of it?"

"I did."

"And what did he say?"

"He reflected a few moments over my words, sighed, and then answered,
`It is imperative, Leighton.  I have no other alternative.'  Therefore
from that I took it that he was acting under compulsion."

"You believe that this foreigner was in a position to demand it--eh?"

The solicitor nodded.  He evidently was of opinion that the reason of
the introduction of this unknown person into Mabel's household was a
secret one, known only to Burton Blair and to the individual himself.
It was curious, I reflected, that Mabel herself had not mentioned it to
me.  Yet perhaps she had hesitated, because I had told her of my promise
to her father, and she did not wish to hurt my feelings.  The whole
situation became hourly more complicated and more mysterious.

I was, however, bent upon accomplishing two things; first, to recover
the millionaire's most precious possession which he had bequeathed to
me, together with such an extraordinary injunction to recollect that
doggerel couplet which still ran in my head; and secondly, to make
private inquiries regarding this unknown foreigner who had so suddenly
become introduced into the affair.

That same evening at six o'clock, having met Reggie by appointment at
Mr. Leighton's office, we all three drove to Scotland Yard, where we had
a long consultation with one of the head officials, to whom we explained
the circumstances and our suspicions of foul play.

"Well," he replied at length, "of course I will institute inquiries in
Manchester and elsewhere, but as the medical evidence has proved so
conclusively that the gentleman in question died from natural causes, I
cannot hold out very much hope that out Department or the Manchester
Detective Department can assist you.  The grounds you have for supposing
that he met with foul play are very vague, you must admit, and as far as
I can see, the only motive at all was the theft of this paper, or
whatever it was, which he carried upon him.  Yet men are not usually
killed in broad daylight in order to commit a theft which any expert
pickpocket might effect.  Besides, if his enemies or rivals knew what it
was and how he was in the habit of carrying it, they could easily have
secured it without assassination."

"But he was in possession of some secret," remarked the solicitor.

"Of what character?"

"I have unfortunately no idea.  Nobody knows.  All that we are aware is
that its possession raised him from poverty to affluence, and that one
person, if not more, was eager to obtain possession of it."

"Naturally," remarked the grey-haired Assistant-Director of Criminal
Investigations.  "But who was this person?"

"Unfortunately I do not know.  My client told me this a year ago, but
mentioned no name."

"Then you have no suspicion whatever of any one?"

"None.  The little bag of wash leather, inside which the document was
sewn, has been stolen, and this fact arouses our suspicion of foul
play."  The hide-bound official shook his head very dubiously.

"That is not enough upon which to base a suspicion of murder, especially
as we have had all the evidence at the inquest, a post-mortem and a
unanimous verdict of the coroner's jury.  No, gentlemen," he added, "I
don't see any ground for really grave suspicion.  The document may not
have been stolen after all.  Mr. Blair seems to have been of a somewhat
eccentric disposition, like many men who suddenly rise in the world, and
he may have hidden it away for safe-keeping somewhere.  To me, this
seems by far the most likely theory, especially as he had expressed a
fear that his enemies sought to gain possession of it."

"But surely, if there is suspicion of murder, it is the duty of the
police to investigate it!"  I exclaimed resentfully.

"Granted.  But where is the suspicion?  Neither doctors, coroner, local
police nor jury entertain the slightest doubt that he died from natural
causes," he argued.  "In that case the Manchester police have neither
right nor necessity to interfere."

"But there has been a theft."

"What proof have you of it?" he asked, raising his grey eyebrows and
tapping the table with his pen.  "If you can show me that a theft has
been committed, then I will put in motion the various influences at my
command.  On the contrary, you merely suspect that this something sewn
in a bag has been stolen.  Yet it may be hidden in some place difficult
to find, but nevertheless in safety.  As, however, you all three allege
that the unfortunate gentleman was assassinated in order to gain
possession of this mysterious little packet of which he was so careful,
I will communicate with the Manchester City police and ask them to make
what inquiries they can.  Further than that, gentlemen," he added
suavely, "I fear that my Department cannot assist you."

"Then all I have to reply," remarked Mr. Leighton, bluntly, "is that the
public opinion of the futility of this branch of the police in the
detection of crime is fully justified, and I shall not fail to see that
public attention is called to the matter through the Press.  It's simply
a disgrace."

"I'm only acting, sir, upon my instructions, conjointly with what you
have yourself told me," was his answer.  "I assure you that if I ordered
inquiries to be made in every case in which persons are alleged to have
been murdered, I should require a detective force as large as the
British Army.  Why, not a day passes without I receive dozens of secret
callers and anonymous letters all alleging assassination--generally
against some person towards whom they entertain a dislike.  Eighteen
years as head of this Department, however, has, I think, taught me how
to distinguish a case for inquiry--which yours is not."

Argument proved futile.  The official mind was made up that Burton Blair
had not fallen a victim to foul play, therefore we could hope for no
assistance.  So with our dissatisfaction rather plainly marked, we rose
and went out again into Whitehall.

"It's a scandal!"  Reggie declared angrily.  "Poor Blair has been
murdered--everything points to it--and yet the police won't lift a
finger to assist us to reveal the truth, just because a doctor
discovered that he had a weak heart.  It's placing a premium on crime,"
he added, his fist clenched savagely.  "I'll relate the whole thing to
my friend Mills, the Member for West Derbyshire, and get him to ask a
question in the House.  We'll see what this new Home Secretary says to
it!  It'll be a nasty pill for him, I'll wager."

"Oh, he'll have some typewritten official excuse ready, never fear,"
laughed Leighton.  "If they won't help us, we must make inquiries for
ourselves."

The solicitor parted from us in Trafalgar Square, arranging to meet us
at Grosvenor Square after the funeral, when the will would be formally
read before the dead man's daughter and her companion, Mrs. Percival.

"And then," he added, "we shall have to take some active steps to
discover this mysterious person who is in future to control her
fortune."

"I'll undertake the inquiries," I said.  "Fortunately I speak Italian,
therefore, before we give him notice of Blair's death.  I'll go out to
Florence and ascertain who and what he is."  Truth to tell, I had a
suspicion that the letter which I had secured from the dead man's
blotting book, and which I had kept secretly to myself, had been written
by this unknown individual--Paolo Melandrini.  Although it bore neither
address nor signature, and was in a heavy and rather uneducated hand, it
was evidently the letter of a Tuscan, for I detected in it certain
phonetic spelling which was purely Florentine.  Translated, the strange
communication read as follows:--

"Your letter reached me only this morning.  The Ceco (blind man) is in
Paris, on his way to London.  The girl is with him, and they evidently
know something.  So be very careful.  He and his ingenious friends will
probably try and trick you.

"I am still at my post, but the water has risen three metres on account
of the heavy rains.  Nevertheless, farming has been good, so I shall
expect to meet you at vespers in San Frediano on the evening of the 6th
of next month.  I have something most important to tell you.  Recollect
that the Ceco means mischief, and act accordingly.  _Addio_."

Times without number I carefully translated the curious missive word for
word.  It seemed full of hidden meaning.

What seemed most probable was that the person known as the "blind man,"
who was Blair's enemy, had actually been successful in gaining
possession of that precious little sachet of chamois leather that was
now mine by right, together with the mysterious secret it contained.

CHAPTER SIX.

CONCERNS THREE CAPITAL A'S.

The function in the library at Grosvenor Square on the following
afternoon was, as may be supposed, a very sad and painful one.

Mabel Blair, dressed in deep mourning, her eyes betraying traces of
tears, sat still and silent while the solicitor drily read over the
will, clause by clause.

She made no comment, even when he repeated the dead man's appointment of
the unknown Italian to be manager of his daughter's fortune.

"But who is he, pray?" demanded Mrs. Percival, in her quiet, refined
voice.  "I have never heard Mr. Blair speak of any such person."

"Nor have I," admitted Leighton, pausing a moment to readjust his
glasses, and then continuing to read the document through to the end.

We were all thoroughly glad when the formality was over.  Afterwards,
Mabel whispered to me that she wished to see me alone in the
morning-room, and when we had entered together and I had closed the
door, she said--

"Last night I searched the small safe in my father's bedroom where he
sometimes kept his private papers and things.  There were a quantity of
my poor mother's letters, written to him years ago when he was at sea,
but nothing else, only this."  And she drew from her pocket a small,
soiled and frayed playing-card, an ace of hearts, upon which certain
cabalistic capitals had been written in three columns.  In order that
you shall properly understand the arrangement and position of the
letters, it will perhaps be as well if I here reproduce it:--

"That's curious!"  I remarked, turning it over anxiously in my hand.
"Have you tried to discover what meaning the words convey?"

"Yes; but it's some cipher or other, I think.  You will notice that the
two upper columns commence with `A,' and the lower column ends with the
same letter.  The card is the ace of hearts, and in all those points I
detect some hidden meaning."

"No doubt," I said.  "But was there an appearance of it being carefully
preserved?"

"Yes, it was sealed in a linen-lined envelope to itself, and marked in
my father's handwriting, `Burton Blair--private.'  I wonder what it
means?"

"Ah!  I wonder," I exclaimed, pondering deeply, and still gazing upon
the three columns of fourteen letters.  I tried to decipher it by the
usual known methods of the easy cipher, but could make nothing
intelligible of it.  There were some hidden words there, and being
utterly unintelligible, they caused me considerable thought.  Why Blair
had preserved that card in such secrecy was, to say the least, a
mystery.  In it I suspected there was some hidden clue to his secret,
but of its nature I could not even guess.

When we had discussed it for a long time, arriving at no satisfactory
conclusion, I suggested that she should go abroad with Mrs. Percival for
a few weeks so as to change her surroundings and endeavour to forget her
sudden bereavement, but she only shook her head, murmuring--

"No, I prefer to remain here.  The loss of my poor father would be the
same to me abroad as it is here."

"But you must endeavour to forget," I urged with deep sympathy.  "We are
doing our utmost to solve the mystery surrounding your father's actions,
and the means by which he came by his death.  To-night, indeed, I am
leaving for Italy in order to make secret inquiries regarding this
person who is appointed your secretary."

"Ah, yes," she sighed.  "I wonder who he is?  I wonder what motive my
father could possibly have in placing my affairs in the hands of a
stranger?"

"He is probably an old friend of your father's," I suggested.

"No," she responded, "I knew all his friends.  He had only one secret
from me--the secret of the source of his wealth.  That he always refused
point blank to tell me."

"I shall travel direct to Florence, and discover what I can before the
lawyers give this mysterious person notice of your father's death," I
said.  "I may obtain some knowledge which will be of the greatest
benefit to us hereafter."

"Ah! it is really very good of you, Mr. Greenwood," she answered,
lifting her beautiful eyes to mine with an expression of profound
gratitude.  "I must admit that the idea of being closely associated with
a stranger, and that stranger a foreigner, causes me considerable
apprehension."

"But he may be young and good looking, the veritable Paolo of romance--
and you his Francesca," I suggested, smiling.

Her sweet lips relaxed slightly, but she shook her head, sighing as she
answered--

"Please don't anticipate anything of the kind.  I only hope he may be
old and very ugly."

"So that he will not arouse my jealousy--eh?"  I laughed.  "Really,
Mabel, if our friendship were not upon such a well-defined basis, I
should allow myself to act the part of lover.  You know I--"

"Now don't be foolish," she interrupted, raising her small finger in
mock reproval.  "Remember what you said yesterday."

"I said what I meant."

"And so did I.  To tell you the truth, I like to think of you as my big
brother," she declared.  "I suppose I shall never love," she added,
reflectively, gazing into the blazing fire.

"No, no; don't say that, Mabel.  You'll one day meet some man in your
own station, love him, marry and be happy," I said, my hand upon her
shoulder.  "Recollect that with your wealth you can secure the pick of
the matrimonial market."

"Some impoverished young aristocrat, you mean?  No, thanks.  I've
already met a good many, but their disguise of affection has always been
much too thin.  Most of them wanted my money to pay off mortgages on
their estates.  No, I'd much prefer a poor man--although I shall _never_
marry--never."

I was silent for a moment, then I remarked quite bluntly--

"I always thought you would marry young Lord Newborough.  You both
seemed very good friends."

"So we were--until he proposed to me."

And she looked me straight in the face with that clear gaze and those
splendid eyes wide open in wonderment, almost like a child's.

Her character was a strangely complex one.  As a tall, willowy girl, in
those early days of our acquaintance, I knew her to be high-minded and
wilful, yet of that sweet affectionate disposition that endeared her to
every one with whom she came into contact.  Her nature was so calm and
so sweet that in her love seemed an unconscious impulse.  I had often
thought she was surely too soft, too good, too fair to be cast among the
briers of the world, and fall and bleed upon the thorns of life.  The
world is just as cold and pitiless and just as full of pitfalls for the
young and unwary in Mayfair as in Mile End.  Hence, to fulfil my promise
to that man now silent in his grave, it was my duty to protect her from
the thousand and one wiles of those who would endeavour to profit by sex
and inexperience.

Her early privations, her hard life in youth while her father was absent
at sea, and those weary months of tramping the turnpikes of England, all
had had their effect upon her.  With her, love seemed to be scarcely a
passion or a sentiment, but a dreamy enchantment, a reverie which a
fairy spell dissolved or riveted at pleasure.  So exquisitely delicate
was her character, just as was her countenance, that it seemed as if a
touch would profane it.  Like a strain of sad, sweet music which comes
floating by on the wings of night and silence, and which we rather feel
than hear, like the exhalation of the violet dying even upon the sense
it charms, like the snow-flake dissolved in air before it has caught a
stain of earth, like the light surf severed from the billow which a
breath disperses--such was her nature, so full of that modesty, grace
and tenderness without which a woman is no woman.

As she stood there before me, a frail, delicate figure in her plain
black gown, and her hand in mine, thanking me for the investigation
which I was undertaking in her behalf, and wishing me _bon voyage_, I
shuddered to think of her thrown alone amid harsh and adverse destinies,
and amid all the corruptions and sharks of society, perhaps without
energy to resist, or will to act, or strength to endure.  Alone in such
a case, the end must inevitably be desolation.

I wished her farewell, turning from her with a feeling that, loving her
as I admit I did, I was nevertheless unworthy of her.  Yet surely I was
playing a dangerous game!

I had entertained a strong and increasing affection for her ever since
that winter's night down at Helpstone.  Still, now that she was
possessor of vast wealth, I felt that the difference in our ages and the
fact that I was a poor man were both barriers to our marriage.  Indeed,
she had never exerted any of the feminine wiles of flirtation towards
me; she had never once allowed me to think that I had captivated her.
She had spoken the truth.  She regarded me as an elder brother--that was
all.

That same night, as I paced the deck of the Channel steamer in the teeth
of a wintry gale, watching the revolving light of Calais harbour growing
more and more distinct, my thoughts were full of her.  Love is the
teacher, grief the tamer, and time the healer of the human heart.  While
the engines throbbed, the wind howled and the dark seas swirled past, I
paced up and down puzzling over the playing-card in my pocket and
reflecting upon all that had occurred.  The rich fancies of unbowed
youth, the visions of long-perished hopes, the shadows of unborn joys,
the gay colourings of the dawn of existence--what ever my memory had
treasured up, came before me in review, but lived no longer within my
heart.

I recollected that truism of Rochefoucauld's: "Il est difficile de
definer l'amour: ce qu'on en peut dire est que, dans l'ame, c'est un
passion de regner; dans les esprits, c'est une sympathie; et dans le
corps, ce n'est qu'une envie cachee et delicate de posseder ce que l'on
aime, apres beaucoup de mysteres."  Yes, I loved her with all my heart,
with all my soul, but to me I recognised that it was not permitted.  My
duty, the duty I had promised to fulfil to that dying man whose
life-story had been a secret romance, was to act as Mabel's protector,
and not to become her lover and thus profit by her wealth.  Blair had
left his secret to me, in order, no doubt, to place me beyond the
necessity of fortune-hunting, and as it had been lost it was my duty to
him and to myself to spare no effort to recover it.

With these sentiments firmly established within my heart I entered the
_wagon-lit_ at Calais, and started on the first stage of my journey
across Europe from the Channel to the Mediterranean.

Three days later I was strolling up the Via Tornabuoni, in Florence,
that thoroughfare of mediaeval palaces, banks, consulates and chemists'
shops that had been so familiar to me each winter, until I had taken to
hunting in England in preference to the sunshine of the Lung' Arno and
the Cascine.  Indeed, some of my early years had been spent in Italy,
and I had grown to love it, as every Englishman does.  In that bright
February morning as I passed up the long, crooked street, filled by the
nonchalant Florentines and the wealthy foreigners out for an airing, I
passed many men and women of my acquaintance.  Doney's and Giacosa's,
the favourite lounges of the men, were agog with rich idlers sipping
cocktails or that seductive _petit verre_ known in the Via Tornabuoni as
a _piccolo_, the baskets of the flower-sellers gave a welcome touch of
colour to the grim grey of the colossal Palace of the Strozzi, while
from the consulates the flags of various nations, most conspicuous of
all being that of the ever-popular "Major," reminded me that it was the
_festa_ of Santa Margherita.

In the old days, when I used to live _en pension_ with a couple of
Italian artillery officers and a Dutch art-student in the top floor of
one of those great old palaces in the Via dei Banchi, the Via Tornabuoni
used to be my morning walk, for there one meets everybody, the ladies
shopping or going to the libraries, and the men gossiping on the kerb--a
habit quickly acquired by every Englishman who takes up his abode in
Italy.

It was astonishing, too, what a crowd of well-known faces I passed that
morning--English peers and peeresses, Members of Parliament, financial
magnates, City sharks, manufacturers, and tourists of every grade and of
every nation.

His Highness the Count of Turin, returning from drill, rode by laughing
with his aide-de-camp and saluting those he knew.  The women mostly wore
their smartest toilettes with fur, because a cold wind came up from the
Arno, the scent of flowers was in the air, bright laughter and incessant
chatter sounded everywhere, and the red-roofed old Lily City was alive
with gaiety.  Perhaps no city in all the world is so full of charm nor
so full of contrasts as quaint old Florence, with her wonderful
cathedral, her antique bridge with rows of jewellers' shops upon it, her
magnificent churches, her ponderous palaces, and her dark, silent,
mediaeval streets, little changed, some of them, since the days when
they were trodden by Giotto and by Dante.  Time has laid his hand
lightly indeed upon the City of Flowers, but whenever he has done so he
has altered it out of all recognition, and the garish modernity of
certain streets and piazzas surely grates to-day upon those who, like
myself, knew the old city before the Piazza Vittorio--always the Piazza
Vittorio, synonym of vandalism--had been constructed, and the old
Ghetto, picturesque if unclean, was still in existence.

Two men, both of them Italian, stopped to salute me as I walked, and to
wish me _ben tomato_.  One was an advocate whose wife was accredited one
of the prettiest women in that city where, strangely enough, the most
striking type of beauty is fair haired.  The other was the Cavaliere
Alinari, secretary to the British Consul-General, or the "Major," as
everybody speaks of him.

I had only arrived in Florence two hours before, and, after a wash at
the _Savoy_, had gone forth with the object of cashing a cheque at
French's, prior to commencing my inquiries.

Meeting Alinari, however, caused me to halt for a moment, and after he
had expressed pleasure at my return, I asked--

"Do you, by any chance, happen to know any one by the name of
Melandrini--Paolo Melandrini?  His address is given me as Via San
Cristofano, number eight."

He looked at me rather strangely with his sharp eyes, stroked his dark
beard a moment, and replied in English, with a slight accent--

"The address does not sound very inviting, Mr. Greenwood.  I have not
the pleasure of knowing the gentleman, but the Via San Cristofano is one
of the poorest and worst streets in Florence, just behind Santa Croce
from the Via Ghibellina.  I should not advise you to enter that quarter
at night.  There are some very bad characters there."

"Well," I explained, "the fact is I have come down here expressly to
ascertain some facts concerning this person."

"Then don't do it yourself," was my friend's strong advice.  "Employ
some one who is a Florentine.  If it is a case of confidential
inquiries, he will certainly be much more successful than you can ever
be.  The moment you set foot in that street it would be known in every
tenement that an Inglese was asking questions.  And," he added with a
meaning smile, "they resent questions being asked in the Via San
Cristofano."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE MYSTERIOUS FOREIGNER.

I felt that his advice was good, and in further conversation over a
_piccolo_ at Giacosa's he suggested that I should employ a very shrewd
but ugly little old man named Carlini, who sometimes made confidential
inquiries on behalf of the Consulate.

An hour later the old man called at the _Savoy_, a bent, shuffling,
white-headed old fellow, shabbily dressed, with a grey soft felt rather
greasy hat stuck jauntily on the side of his head--a typical Florentine
of the people.  They called him "Babbo Carlini" in the markets, I
afterwards learned, and cooks and servant-girls were fond of playing
pranks upon him.  Believed by every one to be a little childish, he
fostered the idea because it gave him greater facilities in his secret
inquiries, for he was regularly employed by the police in serious cases,
and through his shrewdness many a criminal had been brought to justice.

In the privacy of my bedroom I explained in Italian the mission I wished
him to execute for me.

"Si, signore," was all he responded, and this at every pause I made.

His boots were sadly cracked and down at heel, and he was badly in want
of clean linen, but from his handkerchief pocket there arose a small row
of "toscani," those long, thin, penny cigars so dear to the Italian
palate.

"Recollect," I impressed upon the old fellow, "you must, if possible,
find a way of striking up an acquaintance with this individual, Paolo
Melandrini, obtain from him all you can about himself, and arrange so
that I have, as soon as possible, an opportunity of seeing him without
being myself observed.  This matter," I added, "is strictly
confidential, and I engage you for one week in my service at a wage of
two hundred and fifty lire.  Here are one hundred to pay your current
expenses."

He took the green banknotes in his claw-like hand, and with a muttered
"Tanti grazie, signore," transferred it to the inner pocket of his
shabby jacket.

"You must on no account allow the man to suspect that any inquiry is
being made concerning him.  Mind that he knows nothing of any Englishman
in Florence asking about him, or it will arouse his suspicions at once.
Be very careful in all that you say and do, and report to me tonight.
At what time shall I meet you?"

"Late," the old fellow grunted.  "He may be a working-man, and if so I
shall not be able to see anything of him till evening.  I'll call here
at eleven o'clock to-night," and then he shuffled out, leaving an odour
of stale garlic and strong tobacco.

I began to wonder what the hotel people would think of me entertaining
such a visitor, for the _Savoy_ is one of the smartest in Florence, but
my apprehensions were quickly dispelled, for as we passed out I heard
the uniformed hall-porter exclaim in Italian--

"Hulloa, Babbo!  Got a fresh job?"

To which the old fellow only grinned in satisfaction, and with another
grunt passed out into the sunshine.

That day passed long and anxiously.  I idled on the Ponte Vecchio and in
the dim religious gloom of the Santissima Anunziata, in the afternoon
making several calls upon friends I had known, and in the evening dining
at Doney's in preference to the crowded _table-d'hote_ of English and
Americans at the _Savoy_.

At eleven I awaited old Carlini in the hall of the hotel, and on his
arrival took him anxiously in the lift up to my room.

"Well," he commenced, speaking in his slightly-lisping Florentine
tongue, "I have been pursuing inquiries all day, but have discovered
very little.  The individual you require appears to be a mystery."

"I expected so," was my reply.  "What have you discovered regarding
him?"

"They know him in Via San Cristofano.  He has a small apartment on the
third floor of number eight, which he only visits occasionally.  The
place is looked after by an old woman of eighty, whom I managed to
question.  Discovering that this Melandrini was absent and that a cloth
was hanging from the window to dry, I presented myself as an agent of
police to explain that the hanging out of a cloth was a contravention of
the law and liable to a fine of two francs.  I then obtained from her a
few facts concerning her _padrone_.  She told me all she knew, which did
not amount to much.  He had a habit of arriving suddenly, generally at
evening, and staying there for one or two days, never emerging in the
daytime.  Where he lived at other times she did not know.  Letters often
came for him bearing an English stamp, and she kept them.  Indeed, she
showed me one that arrived ten days ago and is now awaiting him."

Could it be from Blair, I wondered?

"What was the character of the handwriting on the envelope?"  I
inquired.

"An English hand--thick and heavy.  Signore was spelt wrongly, I
noticed."

Blair's hand was thick, for he generally wrote with a quill.  I longed
to examine it for myself.

"Then this old serving-woman has no idea of the individual's address?"

"None whatever.  He told her that if any one ever called for him to say
that his movements are uncertain, and that any message must be left in
writing."

"What is the place like?"

"Poorly furnished, and very dirty and neglected.  The old woman is
nearly blind and very feeble."

"Does she describe him as a gentleman?"

"I could not ask her for his description, but from inquiries in other
quarters I learned that he was in all probability a person who was in
trouble with the police, or something of that sort.  A man who kept a
wine-shop at the end of the street told me in confidence that about six
months before, two men, evidently agents of police, had been very active
in their inquiries concerning him.  They had set a watch upon the house
for a month, but he had not returned.  He described him as, a
middle-aged man with a beard, who was very reticent, who wore glasses,
spoke with just a slight foreign accent, and who seldom entered any
wine-shop and who scarcely ever passed the time of day with his
neighbours.  Yet he was evidently well off, for on several occasions, on
hearing of distress among the families living in that street, he had
surreptitiously visited them and dispensed charity to a no mean degree.
Apparently it is this which has inspired respect, while, in addition, he
seems to have purposely surrounded his identity by mystery."

"With some object, no doubt," I remarked.

"Certainly," was the queer old man's response.  "All my inquiries tend
to show he is a man of secrecy and that he is concealing his real
identity."

"It may be that he keeps those rooms merely as an address for letters,"
I suggested.

"Do you know, signore, that is my own opinion?" he said.  "He may live
in another part of Florence for aught we know."

"We must find out.  Before I leave here it is imperative that I should
know all about him, therefore I will assist you to watch for his
return."

Babbo shook his head and fingered his long cigar, which he was longing
to smoke.

"No, signore.  You must not appear in the Via San Cristofana.  They
would note your presence instantly.  Leave all to me.  I will employ an
assistant, and we shall, I hope, before long be shadowing this
mysterious individual."

Recollecting that strange letter in Italian which I had secured from the
dead man's effects, I asked the old fellow if he knew any place called
San Frediano--the place appointed for the meeting between the man now
dead and the writer of the letter.

"Certainly," was his reply.  "There is the market of San Frediano behind
the Carmine.  And, of course, there is the Church of San Frediano in
Lucca."

"In Lucca!"  I echoed.  "Ah, but it is not Florence."

Nevertheless, now I recollected, the letter distinctly appointed the
hour of meeting "at vespers."  The place arranged was therefore most
certainly a church.

"Do you know of any other Church of San Frediano?"  I inquired.

"Only the one in Lucca."

It was evident, then, that the meeting was to take place there on the
6th of March.  If I did not ascertain any further facts concerning Paolo
Melandrini in the meantime, I resolved to keep the appointment and watch
who should be present.

I gave Carlini permission to smoke, and, seated in a low easy-chair, the
old fellow soon filled my room with the strong fumes of his cheap cigar,
at the same time relating to me in narrow details all that he had
gathered in that Florentine slum.

The secret connexion between Burton Blair and this mysterious Italian
was a problem I could not solve.  There was evidently some strong motive
why he should appoint him controller of Mabel's fortune, yet it was all
an utter enigma, just as much as the mysterious source from which the
millionaire had obtained his vast wealth.

Whatever we discovered I knew that it must be some strange revelation.
From the first moment I had met the wayfarer and his daughter, they had
been surrounded by striking romance, which had now deepened, and become
more inexplicable by the death of that bluff, hearty man with a secret.

I could not help strongly suspecting that the man Melandrini, whose
movements were so mysterious and suspicious, had had some hand in
filching from Blair that curious little possession of his which he had,
in his will, bequeathed to my keeping.  This was a strange fancy of
mine, and one which, try how I would, I could not put aside.  So erratic
seemed the man's movements that, for aught I knew, he might have been in
England at the time of Blair's death--if so, then the suspicion against
him was gravely increased.

I was feverishly anxious to return to London, but unable yet to do so
ere my inquiries were completed.  A whole week went by, and Carlini,
employing his son-in-law, a dark-haired young man of low class, as his
assistant, kept vigilant watch upon the house both night and day, but to
no avail.  Paolo Melandrini did not appear to claim the letter from
England that was awaiting him.

One evening by judiciously bribing the old servant with twenty francs,
Carlini obtained the letter in question, and brought it for me to see.
In the privacy of my room we boiled a kettle, steamed the flap of the
envelope, and took out the sheet of notepaper it contained.

It was from Blair.  Dated from Grosvenor Square eighteen days before, it
was in English, and read as follows:--

"_I will meet you if you really wish it.  I will bring out the papers
with me and trust in you to employ persons who know how to keep their
mouths shut.  My address in reply will be Mr. John Marshall, Grand
Hotel, Birmingham_.

"_B.B_."

The mystery increased.  Why did Blair wish for the employment of persons
who would remain silent?  What was the nature of the work that was so
very confidential?

Evidently Blair took every precaution in receiving communications from
the Italian, causing him to address his letters in various names to
various hotels whither he went to stay a night, and thus claim them.

Mabel had often told me of her father's frequent absences from home, he
sometimes being away a week or fortnight, or even three weeks, without
leaving his address behind.  His erratic movements were now accounted
for.

Consumed by anxiety I waited day after day, spending hours on that
maddening cipher on the playing-card, until, on the morning of the 6th
of March, Carlini having been unsuccessful in Florence, I took him with
me up to the old city of Lucca, which, travelling by way of Pistoja, we
reached about two o'clock in the afternoon.

At the _Universo_ I was given that enormous bedroom with the wonderful
frescoes which was for so long occupied by Ruskin, and just before the
Ave Maria clanged away over the hills and plains, I parted from Babbo
and strolled tourist-wise into the magnificent old mediaeval church, the
darkness of which was illuminated only by the candles burning at the
side altars and the cluster before the statue of Our Lady.

Vespers were in progress, and the deathlike stillness of the great
interior was only broken by the low murmuring of the bowed priest.

Only about a dozen persons were present, all of them being women--all
save one, a man who, standing back in the shadow behind one of the huge
circular columns, was waiting there in patience, while of the others all
were kneeling.

Turning suddenly on hearing my light footstep upon the marble flags, I
met him next second face to face.

I drew a quick breath, then stood rooted to the spot in blank and utter
amazement.

The mystery was far greater than even I had imagined it to be.  The
truth that dawned upon me was staggering and utterly bewildering.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

IN WHICH THE TRUTH IS SPOKEN.

The fine old church, with its heavy gildings, its tawdry altars and its
magnificent frescoes, was in such gloom that at first, on entering from
the street, I could distinguish nothing plainly, but as soon as my eyes
became accustomed to the light I saw within a few yards of me a
countenance that was distinctly familiar, a face that caused me to pause
in anxious breathlessness.

Standing there, behind those scattered kneeling women, with the faint,
flickering light of the altar candles illuminating his face just
sufficiently, the man's head was bowed in reverence and yet his dark,
beady eyes seemed darting everywhere.  By his features--those hard,
rather sinister features and greyish scraggy beard that I had once
before seen--I knew that he was the man who had made the secret
appointment with Burton Blair, yet, contrary to my expectations, he was
attired in the rough brown habit and rope girdle of a Capuchin lay
brother, a silent, mournful figure as he stood with folded arms while
the priest in his gorgeous vestments mumbled the prayers.

In that twilight a sepulchral chill fell upon my shoulders; the sweet
smell of the incense in the darkness seemed to increase with that world
of incredible magnificence, of solitude gloomily enchanted, of wealth
strangely incongruous with the squalor and poverty in the piazza
outside.  Beyond that silent monk whose piercing mysterious eyes were
fixed upon me so inquiringly were dark receding distances, traversed
here and there by rainbow beams that fell from some great window, while
far off a dim red light was suspended from the high, vaulted roof.

Those columns beside which I was standing rose straight to the roof,
close and thick like high forest trees, testifying to the patient work
of a whole generation of men all carved in living stone, all infinitely
durable in spite of such rare delicacy and already transmitted to us
from afar through the long-past centuries.

The monk, that man whose bearded face I had seen once before in England,
had thrown himself upon his knees, and was mumbling to himself and
fingering the huge rosary suspended from his girdle.

A woman dressed in black with the black _santuzza_ of the Lucchesi over
her head had entered noiselessly, and was prostrated a few feet from me.
She held a miserable baby at her breast, a child but a few months old,
in whose shrivelled little face there was already the stamp of death.
She was praying ardently for him, as the tapers gradually diminished,
the penny tapers she had placed before the humble picture of Sant'
Antonio, this sorrowing creature.  The contrast between the prodigious
wealth around and the rags of the humble supplicant was overwhelming and
cruel; between the persistent durability of those many thousand Saints
draped in gold, and the frailty of that little being with no tomorrow.

The woman was still kneeling, her lips moving in obstinate and vain
repetitions.  She looked at me, her eyes full of desolation, divining a
pity no doubt in mine; then she turned her gaze upon the hooded
Capuchin, the hard-faced, bearded man who held the key to the secret of
Burton Blair.

I stood behind the ponderous column, bowed but watchful.  The poor
woman, after a quick glance at the splendour around, turned her eyes
more anxiously upon me--a stranger.  Did I really think they would
listen to her, those magnificent divinities?

Ah!  I did not know if they would listen.  In her place I would rather
have carried the child to one of those wayside shrines where the Virgin
of the _contadini_ reigns.  The Madonnas and Saints of Ghirlandajo and
Civitali and Della Querica who inhabited that magnificent old church
seemed somehow to be creatures of ceremony, hardened by secular pomp.
Strange as it may seem, I could not imagine that they would occupy
themselves with a poor old woman from the olive mill or with her
deformed and dying child.

Vespers ended.  The dark, murmuring figures rose, shuffling away over
the marble floor towards the door, and as the lights were quickly
extinguished, the woman and her child became swallowed up in the gloom.

I loitered, desiring that the Capuchin should pass me, in order that I
could obtain a further view of him.  Should I address him, or should I
remain silent and set Babbo to watch him?

He approached me slowly, his big hands hidden in the ample sleeves of
his snuff-coloured habit, the garment which men of his order have new
only once in ten years, and which they wear always, waking or sleeping.

I had halted before the ancient tomb of Santa Zita, that patroness of
Lucca whom Dante mentions in his _Inferno_.  In the little chapel a
single light was burning in the great antique lantern of gold, which the
proud Lucchese placed there ages ago when the black plague was feared.
As I turned, I saw that, although watching me narrowly, he still seemed
to be awaiting the appearance of the man who was now, alas! no more.
Yes, now that in a better light I could see his features, I had no
hesitation in pronouncing him to be the same man I had met a year ago at
Burton's table in Grosvenor Square.

I recollected the occasion well.  It was in June, in the height of the
London season, and Blair had invited me to dine with several bachelor
friends and go to the Empire afterwards.  The man now in a religious
habit, shuffling along in his worn-out sandals, had presented the very
different figure of the easy-going prosperous man-of-the-world, with a
fine diamond in his shirt-front and a particularly well-cut dinner
jacket.  Burton had introduced him to us as Signor Salvi, the celebrated
engineer, and he had sat at table opposite me and chatted in excellent
English.  He struck me as a man who had travelled very widely,
especially in the Far East, and from certain expressions he let drop I
concluded that, like Burton Blair, he had been to sea, and that he was a
friend of the old days before the great secret became so profitable.

The other men present on that occasion were all acquaintances of mine,
two of them financiers in the City whose names were well known on the
Stock Exchange, a third the heir to an earldom to which he had since
succeeded, and the fourth Sir Charles Webb, a smart young Guardsman of
the modern type.  After a dinner of that exquisite character of which
Burton Blair's French _chef_ was famous, we all drove to the Empire, and
afterwards spent a couple of hours at the Grosvenor Club, concluding the
evening at the Bachelors, of which Sir Charles was a member.

Now as I stood within the hushed gloom of that grand old church,
watching the dark mysterious figure pacing the aisle in patience and
awaiting the person who would never come, I recollected what had, on
that evening long ago, aroused within me a curious feeling of resentment
against him.  It was this.  Having left the Empire, we were standing
outside on the pavement in Leicester Square calling cabs, when I
overheard the Italian exclaim in his own language to Blair, "I do not
like that friend of yours--Greenwood.  He is far too inquisitive."  At
this my friend laughed, saying, "Ah, _caro mio_, you don't know him.  He
is my very best friend."  The Italian grunted, replying, "He has been
putting leading questions to me all the evening, and I have had to lie
to him."  Again Blair laughed.  "It is not the first time you've
committed that sin," was his answer.  "No," the other responded in a low
voice, intending that I should not overhear him, "but if you introduce
me to your friends be careful that they are not quite so astute or so
inquisitive as this man Greenwood.  He may be a good fellow, but even if
he is he surely must not know our secret, if he did, it might mean ruin
to us, remember!"

And then, before Blair could make response, he mounted into a hansom
which at that moment had pulled up at the kerb.

From that moment I had entertained a distinct dislike of the man who had
been introduced to me as Salvi, not that I hold every foreigner in
suspicion as some insular Englishmen so foolishly do, but because he had
endeavoured to poison Blair's mind against me.  Yet after a week the
incident had entirely slipped my memory and I had never recollected it
until that strange and unexpected re-encounter.

Was it possible that this monk with the sun-bronzed, bearded face was
the same man who rented that apartment in the Florence slum, and whose
visits there were so surreptitious and mysterious?  Perhaps so, because
all the secrecy of his habitation would be accounted for by the fact
that a Capuchin is not allowed to possess any property outside his
monastery.  Those infrequent visits to Florence might be made at times
when, being a lay brother, he would no doubt be sent out into the
country to collect from the _contadini_ alms and presents in kind for
the poor in the city.  Everywhere throughout Tuscany, in peasant's hut
as in prince's palace, the humble, patient and charitable Capuchin is
welcomed; a flask of wine and a crust is ready for him at the house of
every _contadino_, and in the villas and palaces of the rich there is
always a place for him in the servants' hall.  How many of the Italian
poor are saved annually from sheer starvation by the soup and bread
dispensed daily at the door of every Capuchin monastery, it would be
impossible to estimate.  Suffice it to say that the Order in their
snuff-coloured habits and their black skull-caps is the greatest and
truest friend the starving poor possesses.

Babbo Carlini was no doubt idling outside upon the steps of the church
awaiting my reappearance.  Would he, I wondered, recognise in this monk
the description he had obtained of Paolo Melandrini, the unknown man who
was to be Mabel Blair's secretary and adviser?

The last loiterers in the antique Chapel of the Holy Sacrament had left,
their footsteps echoing away across the flags to the exit, and I found
myself alone with the silent, almost statuesque, man beside whom I had,
only one year before stood in the Grand Circle at the Empire watching
and criticising a ballet.

Should I address him and claim acquaintance?  His openly-expressed
disapproval of myself caused me to hesitate.  It was quite apparent that
he had held me in apprehension on that night at Grosvenor Square,
therefore in the present circumstances his suspicion would undoubtedly
become increased.  Should I boldly address him and thus show my
fearlessness, as well as my acquaintance with his subterfuges? or should
I withdraw and watch his subsequent movements?

I at length decided on the former course--for two reasons.  The first
was that I felt confident he had recognised me as Burton's friend; and
the second because in dealing with such a man the open declaration of
knowledge is always the more advantageous in the end than the careful
concealment of such facts as I already knew.  If I set a watch upon him
his suspicions would become heightened, whereas if I acted openly I
might succeed in disarming him.

Therefore, turning upon my heel, I strolled straight towards where he
had halted as though he were patiently awaiting Blair's arrival.

"Pardon me, signore," I exclaimed in Italian, "but if I mistake not we
have met before--in London, a year ago--was it not?"

"Ah," he exclaimed, his face relaxing into a pleasant smile as he
extended his big, hard hand, "I have been wondering all this time,
Signor Greenwood, if you would recognise me is this dress.  I am very
pleased to resume our acquaintance--very."  And he emphasised his words,
meant or feigned, by a strong, close grip.

I expressed surprise at finding the erratic traveller and
man-of-the-world to be, in reality, an inhabitant of the cloister, to
which in a low voice, in reverence that we were within that sacred
place, he responded--

"I will tell you all about it later.  It is not so remarkable as it no
doubt strikes you.  As a Capuchin I assure you my quiet, reflective life
is far preferable to that of the man who, like yourself, mixes with the
world and is compelled to live the fevered life of to-day, wherein
fortunate unscrupulousness is accounted meritorious and the greatest of
sins is that of one's evil living being found out."

"Yes, I quite understand," I replied, surprised nevertheless at his
assertion and wondering whether, after all, he was merely attempting to
mislead me.  "The life of the cloister must be one of a sweet and
infinite calm.  But if I mistake not," I added, "you are here by
appointment to meet our mutual friend, Burton Blair."

He raised his dark eyebrows slightly, and I could have sworn that my
words caused him to start.  Yet so cleverly did he conceal any surprise
I had caused him that he replied in a quiet, natural tone--

"That is so.  I am here to see him."

"Then I regret to tell you that you will never see him again," I said in
a low, earnest voice.

"Why?" he gasped, his black eyes wide open in surprise.

"Because," I answered, "because poor Burton Blair is dead--and his
secret has been stolen."

"What!" he cried, with a look of abject terror and in a voice so loud
that his exclamation echoed along the high, vaulted roof.  "Blair dead--
and the secret stolen!  _Dio_! impossible--impossible!"

CHAPTER NINE.

THE HOUSE OF SILENCE.

The effect of my words upon the burly Capuchin, whose form seemed almost
gigantic on account of the thickness of his inartistic habit, was as
curious as it was unexpected.

My announcement of Blair's death seemed to completely unnerve him.
Apparently he had been waiting there, keeping the appointment, all
unconscious of the untimely end of the man with whom he had been on
terms of such secret and intimate friendship.

"Tell me--tell me how it happened," he gasped in Italian in a low,
hushed voice, as though he feared that some eavesdropper might be
lurking in those dark recesses.

In a few brief words I explained the truth, to which he listened in
silence.  Then, when I had finished, he muttered something, crossed
himself, and, as the approaching footsteps of the sacristan aroused us
both, we walked forward and out into the dusk of the broad piazza.

Old Carlini, was was lounging upon a bench smoking the end of a cigar,
noticed us in an instant and I saw him open his eyes in wonderment,
although further than that he betrayed no sign.

"Poverino!  Poverino!" repeated the monk as we strolled together slowly
beside the old red walls of the once-proud city.  "To think that our
poor friend Burton died so suddenly--and without a word!"

"Not exactly without a word," I said.  "He gave several directions, one
of which was that he placed his daughter Mabel beneath my care."

"Ah, the little Mabel," he sighed.  "Surely it is ten years since I saw
her in Manchester.  She was then about eleven, a tall, dark-haired,
rather pretty child, a striking likeness of her mother--poor woman."

"You knew her mother, then?"  I asked in some surprise.

He nodded in the affirmative, but gave no further information.

Suddenly turning to me as we walked towards the city gate, the Ponto
Santa Maria, where the uniformed officers of the _dazio_ were lounging
ready to tax every pennyworth of food-stuff entering there, he
demanded--

"How did you know that I had an appointment with our friend to-night?"

"By the letter which you wrote him, and which was found in his bag after
his decease," I responded frankly.

He grunted with distinct satisfaction.  It struck me indeed as though he
were apprehensive that Burton had before his death told me some details
regarding his life.  I recollected that curious cipher upon the
playing-card, although I made no reference to it.

"Ah!  I see!" he exclaimed presently.  "But if that little wallet, or
whatever it was, that he always wore either concealed within his clothes
or suspended around his neck, is missing, does not it point to a
tragedy--theft and murder?"

"There are distinct suspicions," was my reply.  "Although, according to
the doctors, he died from a purely natural cause."

"Ah!  I don't believe it!" cried the monk, fiercely clenching his fist.
"One of them has succeeded at last in stealing that sachet of which he
was always so very careful, and I'm positive that murder has been
committed in order to conceal the theft."

"One of whom?"  I inquired anxiously.

"One of his enemies."

"But are you aware what that little bag contained?"

"He never would tell me," was the Capuchin's reply, looking me straight
in the face.  "He only said that his secret was concealed within--and I
have reason to believe that such was a fact."

"But you knew his secret?"  I said, my eyes full upon him.

I noted, by the change in his dark countenance, how my allegation caused
him quick apprehension.  He could not totally deny it, yet he was
certainly seeking some means of misleading me.

"I only know what he explained to me," he responded.  "And that was not
much, for, as you are aware, he was a most reticent man.  He has long
ago related to me, however, the somewhat romantic circumstances in which
you met, what a good friend you were to him before his stroke of
fortune, and how you and your friend--I forget his name--put Mabel to
school at Bournemouth, and thus rescued her from that weary tramp which
Burton himself had undertaken."

"But why was he on tramp in that manner?"  I asked.  "To me it has
always been an enigma."

"And also to me.  He was, I believe, in search of the key to that secret
which he carried with him--the secret which, you say, he has bequeathed
to you."

"Did he reveal to you nothing more?"  I inquired, recollecting that from
this man's remarks regarding Mabel's youth, he and Blair must have been
old friends.

"Nothing.  His secret remained his own, and he revealed it to nobody
always fearing betrayal."

"But now that it is in other hands, what do you anticipate?"  I
inquired, still walking at his side, for we had passed out of the city
and were out upon that wide, dirty road that led away to the Moriano
Bridge and then fifteen miles up into the mountains to that leafy and
rather gay summer resort well known to all Italians and some English,
the Baths of Lucca.

"Well," responded my companion, very gravely, "from what I learned in
London on the occasion we met, I anticipate that poor Blair's secret has
been most ingeniously stolen, and will be put to good account by the
person into whose possession it has now passed."

"To the detriment of his daughter Mabel?"

"Most certainly.  She must be the principal sufferer," he replied, with
just a suspicion of a sigh.

"Ah, if he had only confided his affairs in some one who, knowing the
truth, might have combated this cunning conspiracy!  But, as it is, we
seem all utterly in the dark.  Even his lawyers know nothing!"

"And you, to whom the secret is left, have actually lost it!" he added.
"Yes, signore, the situation is indeed a most critical one."

"In this affair, Signor Salvi," I said, "being mutual friends of poor
Blair, we must endeavour to do our best to discover and punish his
enemies.  Tell me, therefore, if you are aware of the source of our
unfortunate friend's vast wealth?"

"I am not Signor Salvi here," was the monk's quiet reply.  "I am known
as Fra Antonio of Arezzo, or Fra Antonio for short.  The name of Salvi
was given to me by poor Blair himself, who did not wish to introduce a
Capuchin among his worldly friends as such.  As to the source of his
wealth, I believe I am acquainted with the truth."

"Then tell me, tell me!"  I cried anxiously.

"For it may give us the clue to these persons who had so successfully
conspired against him."  Again the monk turned his dark, penetrating
eyes upon me, those eyes that in the gloom of San Frediano had seemed so
full of fire and yet so full of mystery.

"No," he answered in a hard, decisive tone.  "I am not permitted to tell
anything.  He is dead--let his memory rest."

"But why?"  I demanded.  "In these circumstances of grave suspicion, and
of the theft of the secret which is my property by right, it is surely
your duty to explain what you know, in order that we may gain a clue?
Recollect, too, that the future of his daughter depends upon the truth
being revealed."

"I can tell you nothing," he repeated.  "Much as I regret it, my lips
are sealed."

"Why?"

"By an oath taken years ago--before I entered the Order of the
Capuchins," he responded.  Then after a pause, he added, with a sigh,
"It is all strange--stranger perhaps than any man has dreamed--yet I can
tell you nothing, Mr. Greenwood, absolutely nothing."

I was silent.  His words were highly tantalising, as well as
disappointing.  I had not yet made up my mind whether he was actually my
enemy or my friend.

At one moment he seemed simple, honest and straightforward as are all
men of his religious order, yet at others there seemed within him that
craft and cunning, that clever diplomacy and far-seeing acumen of the
Jesuit, traits of a character warped into ingenuity and double-dealing.

The very fact that Burton Blair had always hidden from me his
friendship--if friendship it were--for this stalwart monk with the
bronzed and furrowed face, caused me to entertain a kind of vague
distrust in him.  And yet, when I recollected the tone of the letter he
had written to Blair, how could I doubt but their friendship, if secret,
was a real and genuine one?  Nevertheless, I recollected those words I
had overheard on the pavement of Leicester Square, and they caused me to
ponder and to doubt.

I walked on beside this man, heedless of our destination.  We were quite
in the country now.  The immobility of everything, the luminous
brilliancy of the tints of that winter afterglow gave the grey,
olive-clad Tuscan hills something of sadness.  That great, calm silence
over everything, that unchanging stillness in the air, those motionless
lights and great shadows gave one the impression of a pause in the dizzy
movement of centuries, of a reflectiveness, of an intense waiting, or
rather a look of melancholy thrown back on a past anterior to suns and
human beings, races and religions.

Before us, as we rounded a bend in the road, I saw a huge, white old
monastery standing high upon the hillside half hidden by the grey-green
trees.

It was the Convent of the Cappuccini, he told me--his home.

I halted for a moment, gazing upon the white, almost windowless
building, scorched by three hundred summers, standing like a stronghold,
as once it was, against the background of the purple Apennines.  I
listened to the clanking of the old bell that sent out its summons with
the same note of age, the same old voice as in centuries gone.  It was
then, in that moment, that the charm of old-world Lucca and her
beautiful surroundings became impressed upon me.  I felt, for the first
time, stealing up from everywhere, an atmosphere of separateness, as it
were, from the rest of the world, of mystery--a living essence of what
the place is--destructible, alas! but still impregnating all things,
exhaling from all things--surely the dying soul of once-brilliant
Tuscany.

And there beside me, overwhelming all my thoughts, as the shadow of the
giant Sphinx falls lengthening upon the desert sands, stood that big,
bronzed monk in the faded brown habit, his feet bare, his waist bound by
a hempen cord, his countenance a mystery, yet within his heart the great
secret which no power could induce him to divulge--the secret of wealth
that had been bequeathed to me.

"Poor Blair is dead!" he repeated again and again in fairly good
English, as though almost unable as yet to realise that his friend was
no more.  Nevertheless, I was slow to become convinced that he spoke
seriously.  He might be misleading me, after all.

At his invitation I accompanied him up the steep, winding road until we
came to the ponderous gate of the monastery, at which he rang.  A solemn
bell clanged loudly, and a few moments later the little grille was
opened, revealing the white-bearded face of the janitor, who instantly
admitted us.

He took me across the silent cloister, in the middle of which was a
wonderful mediaeval well of wrought ironwork, and then along endless
stone corridors, each lit by its single oil lamp, which rendered the
place only more gloomy and depressing.

From the chapel at the end of the great building came the low chanting
of the monks, but beyond, the quiet was that of the grave.  The dark,
ghostly figures passed us noiselessly and seemed to draw aside into the
darkness; the door of the refectory stood open, showing by the two or
three dim lights magnificent carvings, wonderful frescoes and the two
long rows of time-blackened oak benches at which the Brothers sat at
meals.

Suddenly my conductor stopped before a small door, which he opened with
his key, and I found myself within a tiny, carpetless cubicle containing
a truckle bed, a chair, a well-filled bookcase and a writing-table.
Upon the wall was a large wooden crucifix before which he crossed
himself on entering.

"This is my home," he explained in English.  "Not very luxurious, it is
true, but I would not exchange it for a palace in the world outside.
Here we are all brothers, with the superior as our father to supply us
with all our worldly wants, even to our snuff.  There are no jealousies,
no bickerings, no backbitings or rivalry.  All are equal, all perfectly
contented, for we have each one of us learnt the very difficult lesson
of brotherly love."  And he drew the single chair for me to seat myself,
for I was hot and tired after that long, steep ascent from the town.

"It is surely a hard life," I observed.

"At first, yes.  One must be strong in body and in mind to successfully
pass the period of probation," he answered.  "But afterwards the
Capuchin's life is surely one of the pleasantest on earth, banded as we
are to do good and to exercise charity in the name of Sant' Antonio.
But," he added, with a smile, "I did not bring you here, signore, to
endeavour to convert you from your Protestant faith.  I asked you to
accompany me, because you have told me what is a profound and remarkable
mystery.  You have told me of the death of Burton Blair, the man who was
my friend, and to whose advantage it was to meet me in San Frediano
to-night.  There were reasons--the very strongest reasons a man could
have--why he should have kept the appointment.  But he has not done so.
His enemies have willed it otherwise, and they have stolen his secret!"
While he spoke he fumbled in a drawer of the little deal writing-table,
and drew forth something, adding in deep earnestness--

"You knew poor Blair intimately--more intimately, perhaps, than I did of
later years.  You knew his enemies as well as his friends.  Tell me,
have you ever met the original of either of these men?"

And he held before my gaze two cabinet photographs.

One of them was quite unfamiliar to me, but the other I recognised in an
instant.

"Why!"  I said, "that's my old friend Reginald Seton--Blair's friend."

"No," the monk declared in a hard, meaning tone, "not his friend,
signore--his bitterest enemy."

CHAPTER TEN.

THE MAN OF SECRETS.

"I don't understand you," I exclaimed, resenting this charge against the
man who was my most intimate friend.  "Seton has been even a better
friend to poor Blair than myself."

Fra Antonio smiled strangely and mysteriously, as only the subtle
Italian can.  He seemed to pity my ignorance, and inclined to humour me
in my belief in Seton's genuineness.

"I know," he laughed.  "I know almost as much as you do upon the one
side, while upon the other my knowledge extends somewhat further.  All I
can say is that I have watched, and have formed my own conclusions."

"That Seton was not his friend?"

"That Seton was not his friend," he repeated slowly and very distinctly.

"But surely you make no direct charge against him?"  I cried.  "You
surely don't think he's responsible for this tragedy--if tragedy it
really is."

"I make no direct charge," was his ambiguous reply.  "Time will reveal
the truth--no doubt."

I longed to ask him straight out whether he did not sometimes go under
the name of Paolo Melandrini, yet I feared to do so lest I should arouse
his suspicion unduly.

"Time can only reveal that Reginald Seton has been one of the dead man's
best friends," I said reflectively.

"Outwardly, yes," was the Capuchin's dubious remark.

"An enemy as deadly as the Ceco?"  I inquired, watching his face the
while.

"The Ceco!" he gasped, instantly taken aback by my bold remark.  "Who
told you of him?  What do you know regarding him?"

The monk had evidently forgotten what he had written in that letter to
Blair.

"I know that he is in London," I responded, taking my cue from his own
words.  "The girl is with him," I added, utterly unaware however of the
identity of the person referred to.

"Well?" he asked.

"And if they are in London it is surely for no good purpose?"

"Ah!" he said.  "Blair has told you something--told you of his
suspicions?"

"Of late he has gone about in daily dread of secret assassination," I
replied.  "He was evidently afraid of the Ceco."

"And surely he had need to be," exclaimed Fra Antonio, his dark,
brilliant eyes again turned upon mine in the semi-darkness.  "The Ceco
is not an individual to be dealt with easily."

"But what took him to London?"  I demanded.  "Did he go with harmful
intentions?"

The burly monk shrugged his shoulders, answering--

"Dick Dawson was never of a very benevolent disposition.  He evidently
discovered something, and swore to be avenged."

His remarks made plain one very important fact, namely, that the man who
went by the nickname of the "blind man" in Italy was really an
Englishman of the name of Dick Dawson--an adventurer most probably.

"Then you suspect him of complicity in the theft of the secret?"  I
suggested.

"Well, as the little sachet of chamois leather is missing, I am inclined
to think that it must have passed into his hands."

"And the girl, what of her?"

"His daughter, Dolly, will assist him, that's plain.  She's as shrewd as
her father, and possesses a woman's cunning into the bargain--a
dangerous girl, to say the least.  I warned poor Blair of them both," he
added, suddenly, it seemed, recollecting his letter.  "But I am glad you
have recognised one of these photographs.  His name is Seton, you say.
Well, if he is your friend, take my advice and beware.  Are you certain
you have never seen this other man--a friend of Seton's?" he asked very
earnestly.

I carried the picture in my hand to where the dim oil lamp was burning,
and examined it very closely.  It was a vignette of a long-faced,
bald-headed, full-bearded man, wearing a stand-up collar, a black
frock-coat and well-tied bow cravat.  The stud in his shirt front was
somewhat peculiar, for it seemed like the miniature cross of some
foreign order of chivalry, and produced a rather neat and novel effect.
The eyes were those of a keen, crafty man, and the hollow cheeks gave
the countenance a slightly haggard and striking appearance.

It was a face that, to my recollection, I had never seen before, yet
such were its peculiarities that they at once became photographed
indelibly upon my memory.

I told him of my failure to recognise who it was, whereupon he urged--

"When you return, watch the movements of your so-called friend Seton,
and you will perhaps meet his friend.  When you do, write to me here,
and leave him to me."  And he replaced the photograph in the drawer, but
as he did so my quick eye detected that within was a playing card, the
seven of clubs, with some letters written upon it very similar to those
upon the card in my pocket.  I mentioned it, but he merely smiled and
quickly closed the drawer.

Yet surely the fact of the cipher being in his possession was more than
strange.

"Do you ever travel away from Lucca?"  I inquired at last, recollecting
how I had met him at Blair's table in Grosvenor Square, but not at all
satisfied regarding the discovery of the inscribed card.

"Seldom--very seldom," he answered.  "It is so difficult to obtain
permission, and then it is only given to visit relatives.  If there is
any monastery in the vicinity of our destination we must beg our bed
there, in preference to remaining in a private house.  The rules sound
irksome to you," he added with a smile.  "But I assure you they do not
gall us in the least.  They are beneficial to man's happiness and
comfort, all of them."

Again I turned the conversation, endeavouring to ascertain some facts
concerning the dead man's mysterious secret, which I somehow felt
convinced was known to him.  But all to no avail.  He would tell me
nothing.

All he explained was that the reason of the appointment in Lucca that
evening was a very strong one, and that if alive the millionaire would
undoubtedly have kept it.

"He was in the habit of meeting me at certain intervals either in the
Church of San Frediano, or at other places in Lucca, in Pescia, or
Pistoja," the monk said.  "We generally varied the place of meeting from
time to time."

"And that, of course, accounts for his mysterious absences from home," I
remarked, for his movements were frequently very erratic, so that even
Mabel was unaware of his address.  He was generally supposed, however,
to be in the North of England or in Scotland.  No one had any idea that
he travelled so far afield as Central Italy.

The monk's statement also made it plain that Blair had some very strong
motive for keeping these frequent appointments.  Fra Antonio, his secret
friend, had undoubtedly also been his most intimate and most trusted
one.

Why had he kept this strange and mysterious friendship from us all--even
from Mabel?

I gazed upon the Italian's hard, sunburnt face and tried to penetrate
the mystery written there, but in vain.  No man can keep a secret like
the priest of the confessional, or the monk in his cell.

"And what is your intention, now that poor Blair is dead?"  I asked at
length.

"My intention, like yours, is to discover the truth," he replied.  "It
will be a difficult matter, no doubt, but I trust that we shall, in the
end, succeed, and that you will regain the lost secret."

"But may not Blair's enemies make use of it in the meantime?"  I
queried.

"Ah! of course we cannot prevent that," answered Fra Antonio.  "We have
to look to the future, and allow the present to take care of itself.
You, in London, will do your best to discover whether Blair has met with
foul play and at whose hands, while I, here in Italy, will try to find
out whether there was any further motive than the theft of the secret."

"But if the little chamois-bag had been stolen, would not Blair himself
have missed it?"  I suggested.  "He was quite conscious for several
hours before he died."

"He might have forgotten it.  Men's memories often fail them completely
in the hours preceding death."

Night had fallen before the great wooden clappers, used to arouse the
monks to go to prayers at two o'clock in the morning, resounded through
the cloister as a reminder that I, a stranger, must take my departure.

Fra Antonio rose, lit a great old brass lantern, and conducted me along
those silent corridors, out across the small piazza and down the
hillside to the main road which lay straight and white in the darkness.

Then, having directed me on the road, he grasped my hand in his big
palm, rough through hard toil at his patch of garden, and said--

"Rely upon me to do my best.  I knew poor Blair--yes, knew him better
than you did, Signor Greenwood.  I knew, too, something of his
remarkable secret, and therefore I am aware how strange and how
mysterious are all the circumstances.  I shall work on here, making
inquiries, while you return to London and pursue yours.  I would,
however, make the suggestion to you that if you meet Dick Dawson strike
up a friendship with him, and with Dolly.  They are a strange pair, but
friendship with them may be profitable."

"What!"  I exclaimed.  "Friendship with the man whom you declare was one
of Blair's bitterest enemies?"

"And why not?  Is it not diplomacy to be well received in the enemy's
camp?  Recollect that your own stake in this affair is the greatest of
any one's.  The secret is bequeathed to you--the secret of Burton
Blair's millions!"

"And I intend to recover it," I declared firmly.

"I only hope you will, signore," he said in a voice which to me sounded
full of a double meaning.  "I only hope you will."

Then wishing me "_Addio, e buona fortuna_," Fra Antonio, the Capuchin
and man of secrets, turned and left me standing in the dark highway.

Hardly had I advanced fifty yards before a short dark figure loomed out
from the shadow of some bushes, and by the voice that hailed me I knew
it to be old Babbo, whom I had believed had grown tired of awaiting me.
He had, however, evidently followed us from the church, and seeing us
enter the monastery had patiently awaited my return.

"Has the signore discovered what he wished?" inquired the old Italian,
quickly.

"Some of it, not all," was my rejoinder.  "You saw that monk whom I
met?"

"Yes.  Since you have been in the convent I have made some inquiries,
and find that the most popular Capuchin in the whole of Lucca is Fra
Antonio, and that his charitableness is well known.  It is he who begs
from door to door through the city for contesimi and lire in order that
the poor shall have their daily soup and bread.  Report accredits him
with great wealth, which on entering the Order of the Capuchins he made
over as a gift to the fraternity.  He is also known to have a friend to
whom he is very much attached--an Englishman who has one eye so badly
injured that he is known by the townspeople as the Ceco."

"The Ceco!"  I cried.  "What have you discovered regarding him?"

"The keeper of a little cheese-shop close to the gate by which we left
the city proved very communicative.  Like all her class, she seemed to
greatly admire our friend the Cappuccino.  She told me of the frequent
visits of this one-eyed Englishman who had lived so long in Italy that
he was almost an Italian.  The Ceco was in the habit, it seemed, of
staying at the old albergo, the _Croce di Malto_, sometimes accompanied
by a young and very pretty lady, his daughter."

"Where do they come from?"

"Oh!  I've not yet been able to discover that," was Babbo's reply.  "It
seems, however, that the constant visits of the Ceco to the monastery
have aroused the public interest.  The people say that Fra Antonio
nowadays is not so active in his searches after money for the poor now
he is too much occupied with his English friend."

"And the girl?"

"It is evident that her beauty is remarkable, even in Lucca, this city
of pretty girls," answered the old man with a grin.  "She speaks Tuscan
perfectly, and could, they say, easily pass for an Italian.  Her back is
not straight like those Inglese one sees in the Via Tornabuoni--if the
signore will pardon the criticism," the old fellow added apologetically.

This proof that Dick Dawson, against whom the monk had warned Burton
Blair, was actually the friend of the Capuchin brother rendered the
situation more puzzling and more complicated.  I recognised in these
frequent consultations a secret plot against my friend, a conspiracy
which had apparently been carried to a successful issue.

The girl Dolly, whoever she was, had of course never been to the
monastery, but she had evidently been in Lucca as a participator in the
plot to obtain Burton Blair's valuable secret, the secret that was now
mine by law.

We there and then resolved to make inquiries at the _Croce di Malto_,
that antique old hostelry in a narrow side street peculiarly Italian,
and which still prefers to be designated as an albergo, in preference to
the modern name of hotel.

Dick Dawson, known as the Ceco, was undoubtedly in London, but with the
connivance and aid of that crafty and ingenious man of secrets, who had
so cleverly endeavoured to establish with me a false friendship.

Was it actually this man who hid his evil deeds beneath his shabby
religious habit who was responsible for the death of poor Blair and the
mysterious disappearance of that strange little object which was his
most treasured possession.  I somehow felt convinced that such was the
actual truth.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

WHICH EXPLAINS THE PERIL OF MABEL BLAIR.

From inquiries made by old Babbo next morning at the _Cross of Malta_,
it appeared quite plain that Mr. Richard Dawson, whoever he was,
constantly visited Lucca, and always with the object of consulting the
popular Capuchin brother.

Sometimes the one-eyed Englishman who spoke Italian so well would
journey up to the monastery and remain there several hours, and at
others Fra Antonio would come to the inn and there remain closeted in
closest secrecy with the visitor.

The Ceco, so called because of his defective vision, was apparently a
man of means, for his tips to the waiters and maids were always
generous, and when a guest, he and his daughter always ordered the best
that could be procured.  They came from Florence, the _padrone_ thought,
but of that he was not quite certain.  The letters and telegrams he
received securing rooms were dispatched from various towns in both
France and Italy, which seemed to show that they were constantly
travelling.

That was all the information we could gather.  The identity of the
mysterious Paolo Melandrini was, as yet, unproven.  My primary object in
travelling to Italy was not accomplished, but I nevertheless felt
satisfied that I had at last discovered two of poor Blair's most
intimate and yet secret friends.

But why the secrecy?  When I recollected how close had been our
friendship, I felt surprised, and even a trifle annoyed that he had
concealed the existence of these men from me.  Much as I regretted to
think ill of a friend who was dead, I could not suppress a suspicion
that his acquaintance with those men was part of his secret, and that
the latter was some dishonourable one.

Soon after midday, I crammed my things into my valise, and, impelled by
a strong desire to return to safeguard the interests of Mabel Blair,
left Lucca for London.  Babbo travelled with me as far as Pisa, where we
changed, he journeying back to Florence and I picking up the
sleeping-car express on its way through from Rome to Calais.

While standing on the platform at Pisa, however, the shabby old man, who
had grown thoughtful during the past half-hour or so, suddenly said--

"A strange idea has occurred to me, signore.  You will recollect that I
learned in the Via Cristofano that the Signor Melandrini wore
gold-rimmed glasses.  Is it possible that he does so in Florence in
order to conceal his defective sight?"

"Why--I believe so!"  I cried.  "I believe you've guessed the truth!
But on the other hand, neither his servant nor the neighbours suspected
him of being a foreigner."

"He speaks Italian very well," agreed the old man, "but they said he had
a slight accent."

"Well," I said, excited at this latest theory.  "Return at once to the
Via San Cristofano and make further inquiries regarding the mysterious
individual's eyesight and his glasses.  The old woman who keeps his
rooms has no doubt seen him without his glasses, and can tell you the
truth."

"Signore," was the old fellow's answer.  And I then wrote down for him
my address in London to which he was to dispatch a telegram if his
suspicions were confirmed.

Ten minutes later, the roaring Calais-Rome express, the limited train of
three _wagon-lits_, dining-car and baggage-car, ran into the great
vaulted station, and, wishing the queer old Babbo farewell, I climbed in
and was allotted my berth for Calais.

To describe the long, wearying journey back from the Mediterranean to
the Channel, with those wheels grinding for ever beneath, and the
monotony only broken by the announcement that a meal was ready, is
useless.  You, who read this curious story of a man's secret, who have
travelled backwards and forwards over that steel road to Rome, know well
how wearisome it becomes, if you have been a constant traveller between
England and Italy.

Suffice it to say that thirty-six hours after entering the express at
Pisa, I crossed the platform at Charing Cross, jumped into a hansom and
drove to Great Russell Street.  Reggie was not yet back from his
warehouse, but on my table among a quantity of letters I found a
telegram in Italian from Babbo.  It ran:--

"Melandrini has left eye injured.  Undoubtedly same man.--Carlini."

The individual who was destined to be Mabel Blair's secretary and
adviser was her dead father's bitterest enemy--the Englishman, Dick
Dawson.

I stood staring at the telegram, utterly stupefied.

The strange couplet which the dead man had written in his will, and
urged upon me to recollect, kept running in my head--

"King Henry the Eighth was a knave to his queens.  He'd one short of
seven--and nine or ten scenes!"

What hidden meaning could it convey?  The historic facts of King Henry's
marriages and divorces were known to me just as they were known to every
fourth-standard English child throughout the country.  Yet there was
certainly some motive why Blair should have placed the rhyme there--
perhaps as a key to something, but to what?

After a hurried wash and brush up, for I was very dirty and fatigued
after my long journey, I took a cab to Grosvenor Square, where I found
Mabel dressed in her neat black, sitting alone reading in her own warm,
cosy room, an apartment which her father had, two years ago, fitted
tastefully and luxuriously as her boudoir.

She sprang to her feet quickly and greeted me in eagerness when the man
announced me.

"Then you are back again, Mr. Greenwood," she cried.  "Oh, I'm so very
glad.  I've been wondering and wondering that I had heard no news of
you.  Where have you been?"

"In Italy," I answered, throwing off my overcoat at her suggestion, and
taking a low chair near her.  "I have been making inquiries."

"And what have you discovered?"

"Several facts which tend rather to increase the mystery surrounding
your poor father than to elucidate it."

I saw that her face was paler than it had been when I left London, and
that she seemed unnerved and strangely anxious.  I asked her why she had
not gone to Brighton or to some other place on the south coast as I had
suggested, but she replied that she preferred to remain at home, and
that in truth she had been anxiously awaiting my return.

I explained to her in brief what I had discovered in Italy: of my
meeting with the Capuchin brother and of our curious conversation.

"I never heard my father speak of him," she said.  "What kind of man is
he?"

I described him as best I could, and told her how I had met him at
dinner there, in their house, during her absence with Mrs. Percival in
Scotland.

"I thought that a monk, having once entered an Order, could not
re-assume the ordinary garments of secular life," she remarked.

"Neither can he," I said.  "That very fact increases the suspicion
against him, combined with the words I overheard later outside the
Empire Theatre."  And then I went on to relate the incident, just as I
have written it down in a foregoing chapter.

She was silent for some time, her delicate pointed chin resting upon her
palm, as she gazed thoughtfully into the fire.  Then at last she asked--

"And what have you found out regarding this mysterious Italian in whose
hands my father has left me?  Have you seen him?"

"No, I have not seen him, Mabel," was my response.  "But I have
discovered that he is a middle-aged Englishman, and not an Italian at
all.  I shall not, I think, be jealous of his attentions to you, for he
has a defect--he has only one eye."

"Only one eye!" she gasped, her face blanching in an instant as she
sprang to her feet.  "A man with one eye--and an Englishman!  Why," she
cried, "you surely don't say that the man in question is named Dawson--
Dick Dawson?"

"Paolo Melandrini and Dick Dawson are one and the same," I said plainly,
utterly amazed at the terrifying effect my words had had upon her.

"But surely my father has not left me in the hands of that fiend--the
man whose very name is synonymous of all that is cunning, evil and
brutal?  It can't be true--there must be some mistake, Mr. Greenwood--
there must be!  Ah! you do not know the reputation of that one-eyed
Englishman as I do, or you would wish me dead rather than see me in
association with him.  You must save me!" she cried in terror, bursting
into a torrent of tears.  "You promised to be my friend.  You must save
me, save me from that man--the man whose very touch deals death!"  And
next instant she reeled, stretched forth her thin white hands wildly,
and would have fallen senseless to the floor had I not sprang forward
and caught her in my arms.

Whom, I wondered, was this man Dick Dawson that she held in such terror
and loathing--this one-eyed man who was evidently a link with her
father's mysterious past?

CHAPTER TWELVE.

MR. RICHARD DAWSON.

I confess that I was longing for the appearance of this one-eyed
Englishman of whom Mabel Blair was evidently so terrified, in order to
judge him for myself.

What I had gathered concerning him was, up to the present, by no means
satisfactory.  That, in common with the monk, he held the secret of the
dead man's past seemed practically certain, and perhaps Mabel feared
some unwelcome revelation concerning her father's actions and the source
of his wealth.  This was the thought which occurred to me when, having
raised the alarm which brought the faithful companion, Mrs. Percival, I
was assisting to apply restoratives to the insensible girl.

As she lay, her head pillowed upon a cushion of daffodil silk, Mrs.
Percival knelt beside her, and, being in ignorance, held me, I think, in
considerable suspicion.  She inquired rather sharply the reason of
Mabel's unconsciousness, but I merely replied that she had been seized
with a sudden faintness, and attributed it to the overheating of the
room.

Presently, when she came to, she asked Mrs. Percival and her maid Bowers
to leave us alone, and after the door had shut she inquired, pale-faced
and anxious--

"When is this man Dawson to come here?"

"When Mr. Leighton gives him notice of the clause in your father's
will."

"He can come here," she said determinedly, "but before he crosses this
threshold, I shall leave the house.  He may act just as he thinks
proper, but I will not reside under the same roof with him, nor will I
have any communication with him whatsoever."

"I quite understand your feelings, Mabel," I said.  "But is such a
course a judicious one?  Will it not be best to wait and watch the
fellow's movements?"

"Ah! but you don't know him!" she cried.  "You don't suspect what I know
to be the truth!"

"What's that?"

"No," she said in a low hoarse voice, "I may not tell you.  You will
discover all ere long, and then you will not be surprised that I abhor
the very name of the man."

"But why on earth did your father insert such a clause in his will?"

"Because he was compelled," she answered hoarsely.  "He could not help
himself."

"And if he had refused--refused to place you in the power of such a
person--what then?"

"It would have meant his ruin," she answered.  "I suspected it all the
instant I heard that a mysterious man was to be my secretary and to have
control of my affairs.  Your discovery in Italy has only confirmed my
suspicions."

"But you will take my advice, Mabel, and bear with him at first," I
urged, wondering within my heart whether her hatred of the man was
because she knew that he was her father's assassin.  She entertained
some violent dislike of him, but for what reason I entirely failed to
discover.

She shook her head at my argument, saying--"I regret that I am not
sufficiently diplomatic to be able to conceal my antipathy in that
manner.  We women are clever in many ways, but we must always exhibit
our dislikes," she added.

"Well," I remarked, "it will be a very great pity to treat him with open
hostility, for it may upset all our future chances of success in
discovering the truth regarding your poor father's death, and the theft
of his secret.  My strong advice is to remain quite silent, apathetic
even, and yet with a keen, watchful eye.  Sooner or later this man, if
he really is your enemy, must betray himself.  Then will be time enough
for us to act firmly, and, in the end, you will triumph.  For my own
part I consider that the sooner Leighton gives the fellow notice of his
appointment the better."

"But is there no way by which this can be avoided?" she cried, dismayed.
"Surely my poor father's death is sufficiently painful without this
second misfortune!"

She spoke to me as frankly as she would have done to a brother, and I
recognised by her intense manner how, now that her suspicions were
confirmed, she had become absolutely desperate.  Amid all the luxury and
splendour of that splendid place she was a wan and lonely figure, her
young heart torn by grief at her father's death and by a terror which
she dare not divulge.

There is an old and oft-repeated saying that wealth does not bring
happiness, and surely there is often a greater peace of mind and pure
enjoyment of life in the cottage than in the mansion.  The poor are apt
to regard the rich with envy, yet it should be remembered that many a
man and many a woman lolling in a luxurious carriage and served by
liveried servants looks forth upon those toilers in the streets, well
knowing that the hurrying millions of what they term "the masses" are
really far happier than they.  Many a disappointed, world-weary woman of
title, often young and beautiful, would to-day gladly exchange places
with the daughter of the people, whose life, if hard, is nevertheless
full of harmless pleasures and as much happiness as can to obtained in
this our workaday world.  This allegation may sound strange, but I
nevertheless declare it to be true.  The possession of money may bring
luxury and renown; it may enable men and women to outshine their
fellows; it may bring honour, esteem and even popularity.  But what are
they all?  Ask the great landowner; ask the wealthy peer; ask the
millionaire.  If they speak the truth they will tell you in confidence
that they are not in their hearts half so happy, nor do they enjoy life
so much, as the small man of independent means, the man who is subject
to an abatement upon his income-tax.

As I sat there with the dead man's daughter, endeavouring to induce her
to receive the mysterious individual without open hostility, I could not
help noticing the vivid contrast between the luxury of her surroundings
and the heavy burden of her heart.

She suggested that the house should be sold and that she should retire
to Mayvill and there live quietly in the country with Mrs. Percival, but
I urged her to wait, at least for the present.  It seemed a pity that
Burton Blair's splendid collection of old masters, and the fine
tapestries that he had bought in Spain only a few years ago, and the
unique collection of early Majolica, should go to the hammer.  Among the
many treasures in the dining-room was Andrea del Sarto's "Holy Family,"
for which Blair had given sixteen thousand five hundred pounds at
Christie's, and which was considered one of the finest examples of that
great master.  Again, the Italian Renaissance furniture, the old
Montelupo and Savona ware and the magnificent old English plate were
each worth a fortune in themselves, and should, I contended, remain
Mabel's property, as they had been all bequeathed to her.

"Yes, I know," she responded to my argument.  "Everything is mine except
that little bag containing the sachet, which is yours, and which is so
unfortunately missing."

"You must help me to recover it," I urged.  "It will be to our mutual
interests to do so."

"Of course I will assist you in every way possible, Mr. Greenwood," was
her answer.  "Since you've been away in Italy I have had the house
searched from top to bottom, and have myself examined all my father's
dispatch-boxes, his two other safes, and certain places where he
sometimes secreted his private papers, in order to discover whether,
fearing that an attempt might be made to steal the little bag, he left
it at home.  But all in vain.  It certainly is not in this house."

I thanked her for her efforts, knowing well that she had acted
vigorously on my behalf, but feeling that any search within that house
was futile, and that if the secret were ever recovered it would be found
in the hands of one or other of Blair s enemies.

Together we sat for a long time discussing the situation.  The reason of
her hatred of the man Dawson she would not divulge, but this did not
cause me any real surprise, for I saw in her attitude a desire to
conceal some secret of her father's past.  Nevertheless, after much
persuasion, I induced her to consent to allow the man to be informed of
his office, and to receive him without betraying the slightest sign of
annoyance or disfavour.

This I considered a triumph of my own diplomacy.  Up to a certain point
I, as her best friend in those hard, dark days bygone, possessed a
complete influence over her.  But beyond that, when it became a question
involving her father's honour, I was entirely powerless.  She was a girl
of strong individuality, and like all such, was quick of penetration,
and peculiarly subject to prejudice on account of her high sense of
honour.

She flattered me by declaring that she wished that I had been appointed
her secretary, whereupon I thanked her for the compliment, but
asserted--

"Such a thing could never have been."

"Why?"

"Because you have told me that this fellow Dawson is coming here as a
matter of right.  Your father wrote that unfortunate clause in his will
under compulsion--which means, because he stood in fear of him."

"Yes," she sighed in a low voice.  "You are right, Mr. Greenwood.  Quite
right.  He held my father's life in his hands."

This latter remark struck me as very strange.  Could Burton Blair have
been guilty of some nameless crime that he should fear this mysterious
one-eyed Englishman?  Perhaps so.  Perhaps the man Dick Dawson, who had
for years been passing as an Italian in rural Italy, was the only living
witness of an incident which Blair, in his prosperous days, would have
gladly given a million to efface.  Such, indeed, was one of the many
theories which arose within me.  Yet when I recollected the bluff,
good-natured honesty of Burton Blair, his sterling sincerity, his
high-mindedness, and his anonymous charitable works for charity's sake,
I crushed down all such suspicions, and determined only to respect the
dead man's memory.

The next night, just before nine o'clock, as Reggie and I were chatting
over our coffee in our cosy little dining-room in Great Russell Street,
Glave, our man, tapped, entered, and handed me a card.

I sprang from my chair, as though I had received an electric shock.

"Well!  This is funny, old chap," I cried turning to my friend.  "Here's
actually the man Dawson himself."

"Dawson!" gasped the man against whom the monk had warned me.  "Let's
have him in.  But, by Gad! we must be careful of what we say, for, if
all is true of him, he has the cuteness of Old Nick himself."

"Leave him to me," I said.  Then turning to Glave, said, "Show the
gentleman in."

And we both waited in breathless expectancy for the appearance of the
man who knew the truth concerning the carefully-guarded past of Burton
Blair, and who, for some mysterious reason, had concealed himself so
long in the guise of an Italian.

A moment later he was ushered in, and bowing to us exclaimed with a
smile--

"I suppose, gentlemen, I have to introduce myself.  My name is Dawson--
Richard Dawson."

"And mine is Gilbert Greenwood," I said rather distantly.  "While my
friend here is Reginald Seton."

"I have heard of you both from our mutual friend, now unfortunately
deceased, Burton Blair," he exclaimed; and sank slowly into the
grandfather armchair which I indicated, while I myself stood upon the
hearthrug with my back to the fire in order to take a good look at him.

He was in well-made evening clothes, over which he wore a black
overcoat, yet there was nothing about him suggestive of the man of
strong character.  He was of middle height, and his age I judged to be
nearly fifty.  He wore gold-framed round eye-glasses with thick pebbles,
through which he seemed to blink at us like a German professor, and his
general aspect was that of a sedate and studious man.

Beneath a patchy mass of grey-brown hair his forehead fell in wrinkled
notches over a pair of sunken blue eyes, one of which looked upon the
world in speculative wonder, while the other was grey, cloudy, and
sightless.  Straggling eyebrows wandered in a curiously uncertain manner
to their meeting-place above a somewhat fleshy nose.  Below the cheeks
and beard and moustache blended in a colour-scheme of grey.  From the
sleeves of his overcoat, as he sat there before us, his lithe, brown
fingers shot in and out, twisting and tapping the padded arms of the
chair with nervous persistence, and in a manner which indicated the high
tension of the man.

"My reason for intruding upon you at this hour," he said half
apologetically, yet with a mysterious smile upon his thick lips, "is
because I only arrived back in London this evening and discovered that
my friend Blair has, by his will, left in my hands the control of his
daughter's affairs."

"Oh!"  I exclaimed in pretended surprise as though it were news to me.
"And who has said this?"

"I have received information privately," was his evasive answer.  "But
before proceeding further, I thought it best to call upon you, in order
that we might from the outset thoroughly understand each other.  I know
that both of you have been Blair's most intimate and kindest friends,
while owing to certain somewhat curious circumstances I have been
compelled, until to-day, to remain entirely in the background, his
friend in secret as it were.  I am also well aware of the circumstances
in which you met, of your charity to my dead friend and to his
daughter--in fact, he told me everything, for he had no secrets from me.
Yet you on your part," he continued, glancing at us from one to the
other with that single blue eye, "you must have regarded his sudden
wealth as a complete mystery."

"We certainly have done," I remarked.

"Ah!" he exclaimed quickly in a tone of ill-concealed satisfaction.
"Then he has revealed to you nothing!"

And in an instant I saw that I had inadvertently told the fellow exactly
what he most desired to know.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

BURTON BLAIR'S SECRET IS REVEALED.

"Whatever Burton Blair told me was in strictest confidence," I
exclaimed, resenting the fellow's intrusion, yet secretly glad to have
that opportunity of meeting him and of endeavouring to ascertain his
intentions.

"Of course," answered Dawson with a smile, his one shining eye blinking
at me from behind his gold-rimmed glasses.  "But his friendliness and
gratitude never led him sufficiently far to reveal to you his secret.
No.  I think if you will pardon me, Mr. Greenwood, it is useless for us
to fence in this manner, having regard to the fact that I know rather
more of Burton Blair and his past life than you ever have done."

"Admitted," I said.  "Blair was always very reticent.  He set himself to
solve some mystery and achieved his object."

"And by doing so gained over two millions sterling which people still
regard as a mystery.  There is, however, no mystery about those heaps of
securities lying at his banks, nor about the cash with which he
purchased them," he laughed.  "It was good Bank of England notes and
solid gold coin of the realm.  But now he's dead, poor fellow; it has
all come to an end," he added with a slightly reflective air.

"But his secret still exists," Reggie remarked.  "He has bequeathed it
to my friend here."

"What!" snapped the man with one eye, turning to me in sheer amazement.
"He has left his secret with you?"

He seemed utterly staggered by Reggie's words, and I noted the evil
glitter in his glance.

"He has.  The secret is now mine," I answered; although I did not tell
him that the mysterious little wash leather bag was missing.

"But don't you know what that involves, man?" he cried, and having risen
from his chair he now stood before me, his thin fingers twitching with
excitement.

"No, I don't," I said, laughing in an endeavour to treat his words
lightly.  "He has left me as a legacy the little bag he always carried,
together with certain instructions which I shall endeavour to act upon."

"Very well," he snarled.  "Do just as you think fit, only I would rather
you were left possessor of that secret than me--that's all."

His dismay and annoyance apparently knew no bounds.  He strove hard to
conceal it, but without avail.  It was therefore at once plain that
there was some very strong motive why the secret should not be allowed
to fall into my possession.  Yet his belief that the little sachet had
already passed into my hands negatived my theory that this mysterious
person was in any way connected with Burton Blair's death.

"Believe me, Mr. Dawson," I said quite calmly, "I entertain no fear of
the result of my friend's kind generosity.  Indeed, I can see no ground
for any apprehension.  Blair discovered a mystery which, by dint of long
patience and almost superhuman effort, he succeeded in solving, and I
presume that, possibly from a feeling of some little gratitude for the
small help my friend and myself were able to render him, he has left his
secret in my keeping."

The man was silent for several moments with that single irritating eye
fixed upon me immovably.

"Ah!" he exclaimed at last with impatience.  "I see that you are in
utter ignorance.  Perhaps it is as well that you should remain so."
Then he added, "But let us talk of another matter--of the future."

"Well?"  I inquired, "and what of the future?"

"I am appointed secretary to Mabel Blair, and the controller of her
affairs."

"And I promised Burton Blair upon his deathbed to guard and protect the
young lady's interests," I said, in a cold, calm voice.

"Then may I ask, now we are upon the subject, whether you entertain
matrimonial intentions towards her?"

"No, you shall not ask me anything of the kind," I blazed forth.  "Your
question is a piece of outrageous impertinence, sir."

"Come, come, Gilbert," Reggie exclaimed.

"There's surely no need to quarrel."

"None whatever," declared Mr. Richard Dawson, with a supercilious air.
"The question is quite simple, and one which I, as the future controller
of the young lady's fortune, have a perfect right to ask.  I
understand," he added, "that she has grown to be very attractive and
popular."

"Your question is one which I refuse to answer," I declared with
considerable warmth.  "I might just as well demand of you the reason why
you have been lying low in Italy all these years, or why you received
letters addressed to a back street in Florence."

His jaw dropped, his brows slightly contracted, and I saw my remark
caused him some apprehension.

"Oh! and how are you aware that I have lived in Italy?"

But in order to mislead him I smiled mysteriously and replied--

"The man who holds Burton Blair's secret also holds certain secrets
concerning his friends."  Then I added meaningly, "The Ceco is well
known in Florence and in Lucca."

His face blanched, his thin, sinewy fingers moved again, and the
twitching at the corners of his mouth showed how intensely excited he
had become at that mention of his nickname.

"Ah!" he exclaimed.  "He has played me false, then, after all--he has
told you that--eh?  Very well!"  And he laughed the strange hollow laugh
of a man who contemplates revenge.  "Very well, gentlemen.  I see my
position in this affair is that of an intruder."

"To tell you the truth, sir, it is," exclaimed Reggie.  "You were
unknown until the dead man's will was read, and I do not anticipate that
the young lady will care to be compelled to employ a stranger."

"A stranger!" he laughed, with a haughty touch of sarcasm.  "Dick Dawson
a stranger!  No, sir, you will find that to her I am no stranger.  On
the other hand you will, I think, discover that instead of resenting my
interference, the young lady will rather welcome it.  Wait and see," he
added, with a strangely confident air.  "To-morrow I intend to call upon
Mr. Leighton, and to take up my duties as secretary to the daughter of
the late Burton Blair, millionaire," and laying stress on the final
word, he laughed again defiantly in our faces.

He was not a gentleman.  I decided that on the instant he had entered
the room.  Outwardly his bearing was that of one who had mixed with
respectable people, but it was only a veneer of polish, for when he grew
excited he was just as uncouth as the bluff seafarer who had so suddenly
expired.  His twang was pronouncedly Cockney, even though it was said he
had lived in Italy so many years that he had almost become an Italian.
A man who is a real born Londoner can never disguise his nasal "n's,"
even though he live his life at the uttermost ends of the earth.  We had
both quickly detected that the stranger, though of rather slim built,
was unusually muscular.  And this was the man who had had those frequent
secret interviews with the grave-eyed Capuchin, Fra Antonio.

That he stood in no fear of us had been shown by the bold and open
manner in which he had called, and the frankness with which he had
spoken.  He was entirely confident in his own position, and was inwardly
chuckling at our own ignorance.

"You speak of me as a stranger, gentlemen," he said, buttoning his
overcoat after a short pause and taking up his stick.  "I suppose I am
to-night--but I shall not be so to-morrow.  Very soon, I hope, we shall
learn to know one another better, then perhaps you will trust me a
little further than you do this evening.  Recollect that I have for many
years been the dead man's most intimate friend."

It was on the point of my tongue to remark that the reason of the
strange clause in the will was because of poor Burton's fear of him, and
that it had been inserted under compulsion, but I fortunately managed to
restrain myself and to wish the fellow "Good-evening" with some show of
politeness.

"Well, I'm hanged, Gilbert," cried Reggie, when the one-eyed man had
gone.  "The situation grows more interesting and complicated every
moment.  Leighton has a tough customer to deal with, that's very
evident."

"Yes," I sighed.  "He has the best of us all round, because Blair
evidently took him completely into his confidence."

"Burton treated us shabbily, that's my opinion, Greenwood!" blurted
forth my friend, selecting a fresh cigar, and biting off the end
viciously.

"He left his secret to me remember."

"He may have destroyed it after making the will," my friend suggested.

"No, it is either hidden or has been stolen--which is not at all plain.
For my own part, I consider that the theory of murder is gradually
becoming dispelled.  If he had any suspicion that he had been the victim
of foul play, he surely would have made some remark to us before he
died.  Of that I feel absolutely convinced."

"Very probably," he remarked, rather dubiously, however.  "But what we
have now to discover is whether that little bag he wore is still in
existence."

"The man Dawson was evidently in England before poor Blair's death.  It
may have passed into his possession," I suggested.

"He would, in all probability, endeavour to get hold of it," Reggie
agreed.  "We must establish where he was and what he was doing on that
day when Blair was so mysteriously seized in the train.  I don't like
the fellow, apart from his alias and the secrecy of friendship with
Blair.  He means mischief, old chap--distinct mischief.  I saw it in
that one eye of his.  Remember what he said about Blair giving him away.
It struck me that he contemplates revenge upon poor Mabel."

"He'd better not try to injure her," I exclaimed fiercely.  "I've my
promise to keep to poor Burton, and I'll keep it--by Heaven, I will!--to
the very letter.  She sha'n't fall into the hands of that adventurer,
I'll take good care."

"She's in fear of him already.  I wonder why?"

"Unfortunately she won't tell me.  He probably holds some guilty secret
of the dead man's, the truth of which, if exposed, might, for all we
know, have the effect of placing Mabel herself outside the pale of good
society."

Seton grunted, lolled back in his chair, and gazed thoughtfully into the
fire.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, after a brief silence.  "I wonder whether that
is so?"

On the following morning, as we were seated at breakfast, a note from
Mabel was brought by a boy-messenger, asking me to come round to
Grosvenor Square at once.  Therefore without delay I swallowed my
coffee, struggled into my overcoat, and a quarter of an hour later
entered the bright morning-room where the dead man's daughter, her face
rather flushed by excitement, stood awaiting me.

"What's the matter?"  I inquired quickly as I took her hand, fearing
that the man she loathed had already called upon her.

"Nothing serious," she laughed.  "I have only a piece of very good news
for you."

"For me--what?"

Without answering, she placed on the table a small plain silver
cigarette-box, upon one corner of the lid of which was engraved the
cipher double B, that monogram that was upon all Blair's plate,
carriages, harness and other possessions.

"See what is inside that," she exclaimed, pointing to the box before
her, and smiling sweetly with profound satisfaction.

I eagerly took it in my hands and raising the lid, peered within.

"What!"  I cried aloud, almost beside myself with joy.  "It can't really
be?"

"Yes," she laughed.  "It is."

And then, with trembling fingers, I drew forth from the box the actual
object that had been bequeathed to me, the little well-worn bag of
chamois leather, the small sachet about the size of a man's palm,
attached to which was a thin but very strong golden chain for suspending
it around the neck.

"I found it this morning quite accidentally, just as it is, in a secret
drawer in the old bureau in my father's dressing-room," she explained.
"He must have placed it there for security before leaving for Scotland."

I held it in my hand utterly stupefied, yet with the most profound
gratification.  Did not the very fact that Blair had taken it off and
placed it in that box rather than risk wearing it during that journey to
the North prove that he had gone in fear of an attempt being made to
obtain its possession?  Nevertheless, the curious little object
bequeathed to me under such strange conditions was now actually in my
hand, a flat, neatly-sewn bag of wash-leather that was black with age
and wear, about half-an-inch thick, and containing something flat and
hard.

Within was concealed the great secret, the knowledge of which had raised
Burton Blair from a homeless seafarer into affluence.  What it could be,
neither Mabel nor I could for a moment imagine.

Both of us were breathless, equally eager to ascertain the truth.
Surely never in the life of any man was there presented a more
interesting or a more tantalising problem.

In silence she took up a pair of small buttonhole scissors from the
little writing-table in the window and handed them to me.

Then, my hand trembling with excitement, I inserted the point into the
end of the leather packet and made a long sharp cut the whole of its
length, but what fell out upon the carpet next instant caused us both to
utter loud exclamations of surprise.

Burton Blair's most treasured possession, the Great Secret which he had
carried on his person all those years and through all those wanderings,
now at last revealed, proved utterly astounding.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

GIVES AN EXPERT OPINION.

Upon the carpet at our feet lay scattered a pack of very small, rather
dirty cards which had fallen from the little sachet, and which both of
us stood regarding with surprise and disappointment.

For my own part I expected to find within that treasured bag of
wash-leather something of more value than those thumbed and half
worn-out pieces of pasteboard, but our curiosity was instantly aroused
when, on stooping, I picked up one of them and discovered certain
letters written in brown faded ink upon it, similar to those upon the
card already in my possession.

It chanced to be the ten of diamonds, and in order that you may be able
to the more clearly understand the arrangement of the letters upon them,
I reproduce it here:--

"How strange!" cried Mabel, taking the card and examining it closely.
"It surely must be some cipher, the same as the other card which I found
sealed up in the safe."

"No doubt," I exclaimed, as, stooping and gathering up the remainder of
the pack, I noticed that upon each of them, either upon the front or
upon the back, were scrawled either fourteen or fifteen letters in a
treble column, all, of course, utterly unintelligible.

I counted them.  It was a piquet pack of thirty-one, the missing card
being the ace of hearts which we had already discovered.  By the
friction of having been carried on the person for so long the corners
and edges were worn, while the gloss of the surface had long ago
disappeared.

Aided by Mabel I spread them all upon the table, utterly bewildered by
the columns of letters which showed that some deep secret was written
upon them, yet what it was we were utterly unable to decipher.

Upon the front of the ace of clubs was scrawled in three parallel
columns of five letters each, thus:--

  E H N
  W E D
  T O L
  I E H
  W H R

Again, I turned up the king of spades and found on the reverse only
fourteen letters:--

  Q W F
  T S W
  T H U
  O F E
  Y E

"I wonder what it all means?"  I exclaimed, carefully examining the
written characters in the light.  The letters were in capitals just as
rudely and unevenly drawn as those upon the ace of hearts, evidently by
an uneducated hand.  Indeed the A's betrayed a foreign form rather than
English, and the fact that some of the cards were inscribed on the
obverse and others on the reverse seemed to convey some hidden meaning.
What it was, however, was both tantalising and puzzling.

"It certainly is very curious," Mabel remarked after she had vainly
striven to construct intelligible words from the columns of letters by
the easy methods of calculation.  "I had no idea that my father carried
his secret concealed in this manner."

"Yes," I said, "it really is amazing.  No doubt his secret is really
written here, if we only knew the key.  But in all probability his
enemies are aware of its existence, or he would not have left it
secreted here when he set forth on his journey to Manchester.  That man
Dawson may know it."

"Most probably," was her reply.  "He was my father's intimate
acquaintance."

"His friend--he says he was."

"Friend!" she cried resentfully.  "No, his enemy."

"And therefore your father held him in fear?  It was that reason which
induced him to insert that very injudicious clause in his will."

And then I described to her the visit of the man Dawson on the previous
night, telling her what he had said, and his impudent, defiant attitude
towards us.

She sighed, but uttered no reply.  I noticed that as I spoke her
countenance went a trifle paler, but she remained silent, as though she
feared to speak lest she should inadvertently expose what she intended
should remain a secret.

My chief thought at that moment, however, was the elucidation of the
problem presented by those thirty-two well-thumbed cards.  The secret of
Burton Blair, the knowledge of which had brought him his millions, was
hidden there, and as it had been bequeathed to me it was surely to my
interest to exert every effort to gain exact knowledge of it.  I
recollected how very careful he had been over that little bag which now
lay empty upon the table, and with what careless confidence he had shown
it to me on that night when he was but a homeless wanderer tramping the
muddy turnpike roads.

As he had held it in his hand, his eyes had brightened with keen
anticipation.  He would be a rich man some day, he had prophesied, and
I, in my ignorance, had then believed him to be romancing.  But when I
looked around that room in which I now stood and saw that Murillo and
that Tintoretto, each of them worth a small fortune in themselves, I was
bound to confess that I had wrongly mistrusted him.

And the secret written upon that insignificant-looking little pack of
cards was mine--if only I could decipher it!

Surely no situation could be more tantalising to a poor man like myself.
The man whom I had been able to befriend had left me, in gracious
recognition, the secret of the source of his enormous income, yet so
well concealed was it that neither Mabel nor myself could decipher it.

"What shall you do?" she inquired presently, after poring over the cards
in silence for quite ten minutes.  "Is there no expert in London who
might find out the key?  Surely those people who do cryptograms and
things could help us?"

"Certainly," was my answer, "but in that case, if they were successful
they would discover the secret for themselves."

"Ah, I never thought of that!"

"Your father's directions in his will as to secrecy are very explicit."

"But possession of these cards without the key is surely not of much
benefit," she argued.  "Could you not consult somebody, and ascertain by
what means such records are deciphered?"

"I might make inquiries in a general way," I answered, "but to place the
pack of cards blindly in the hands of an expert would, I fear, simply be
giving away your father's most confidential possession.  There may be
written here some fact which it is not desirable that the world shall
know."

"Ah!" she said, glancing quickly up at me.  "Some facts regarding his
past, you mean.  Yes.  You are quite right, Mr. Greenwood.  We must be
very careful to guard the secret of these cards well, especially if, as
you suggest, the man Dawson really knows the means by which the record
may be rendered intelligible."

"The secret has been bequeathed to me, therefore I will take possession
of them," I said.  "I will also make inquiries, and ascertain by what
means such ciphers are rendered into plain English."

I had at that moment thought of a man named Boyle, a professor at a
training-college in Leicester who was an expert at anagrams, ciphers,
and such things, and I intended to lose no time in running up there to
see him and ascertain his opinion.

Therefore at noon I took train at St. Pancras, and about half-past two
was sitting with him in his private room at the college.  He was a
middle-aged, clean-shaven man of quick intelligence, who had frequently
won prizes in various competitions offered by different journals; a man
who seemed to have committed Bartlett's _Dictionary of Familiar
Quotations_ to memory, and whose ingenuity in deciphering puzzles was
unequalled.

While smoking a cigarette with him, I explained the point upon which I
desired his opinion.

"May I see the cards?" he inquired, removing his briar from his mouth
and looking at me with some surprise, I thought.

My first impulse was to refuse him sight of them, but on second thoughts
I recollected that of all men he was one of the greatest experts in such
matters, therefore I drew the little pack from the envelope in which I
had placed them.

"Ah!" he exclaimed the moment he took them in his hand and ran quickly
through them.  "This, Mr. Greenwood, is the most complicated and most
difficult of all ciphers.  It was in vogue in Italy and Spain in the
seventeenth century, and afterwards in England, but seems to have
dropped into disuse during the past hundred years or so, probably on
account of its great difficulty."

Carefully he spread the cards out in suits upon the table, and seemed to
make long and elaborate calculations between the heavy puffs at his
pipe.

"No!" he exclaimed.  "It isn't what I expected.  Guess-work will never
help you in this solution.  You might try for a hundred years to
decipher it, but will fail, if you do not discover the key.  Indeed, so
much ingenuity is shown in it that a writer in the last century
estimated that in such a pack of cards as this, with such a cipher upon
them, there are at least fully fifty-two millions of possible
arrangements."

"But how is the cipher written?"  I inquired much interested, yet with
heart-sinking at his inability to assist me.

"It is done in this way," he said.  "The writer of the secret settles
what he wishes to record and he then arranges the thirty-two cards in
what order he wishes.  He then writes the first thirty-two letters of
his message record, or whatever it may be, on the face or on the back of
the thirty-two cards, one letter upon each card consecutively,
commencing with the first column, and going on with columns two and
three, working down each column, until he has written the last letter of
the cipher.  In the writing, however, certain prearranged letters are
used in place of spaces, and sometimes the cipher is made still more
difficult for a chance finder of the cards to decipher by the
introduction of a specially arranged shuffle of the cards half way
through the writing of the record."

"Very ingenious!"  I remarked, utterly bewildered by the extraordinary
complication of Burton Blair's secret.  "And yet the letters are so
plainly written!"

"That's just it," he laughed.  "To the eye it is the plainest of all
ciphers, and yet one that is utterly unintelligible unless the exact
formula in its writing be known.  When that is ascertained the solution
becomes easy.  The cards are rearranged in the order in which they were
written upon, and the record or message spelt off, one letter on each
card in succession, reading down one column after another and omitting
the letter arranged as spaces."

"Ah!"  I exclaimed fervently.  "How I wish I knew the key."

"Is this a very important secret, then?" asked Boyle.

"Very," I replied.  "A confidential matter which has been placed in my
hands, and one which I am bound to solve."

"I fear you will never do so unless the key is in existence," was his
answer.  "It is far too difficult for me to attempt.  The complications
which are so simply effected in the writing, shield it effectually from
any chance solution.  Therefore, all endeavours to decipher it without
knowledge of the pre-arrangement of the pack must necessarily prove
futile."

He replaced the cards in the envelope and handed them back to me,
regretting that he could not render me assistance.

"You might try every day for years and years," he declared, "and you
would be no nearer the truth.  It is too well protected for chance
discovery, and is, indeed, the safest and most ingenious cipher ever
devised by man's ingenuity."

I remained and took a cup of tea with him, then at half-past four
entered the express and returned to London, disappointed at my utterly
fruitless errand.  What he had explained to me rendered the secret more
impenetrable and inscrutable than ever.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

CERTAIN THINGS WE FOUND AT MAYVILL.

"Miss Blair, sir," announced Glave next day just before noon, while I
was sitting alone in my room in Great Russell Street, smoking
vigorously, and utterly bewildered over the problem of the dead man's
pack of cards.

I sprang to my feet to welcome Mabel, who in her rich warm furs was
looking very dainty and charming.

"I suppose if Mrs. Percival knew I had come here alone, she'd give me a
sound lecture against visiting a man's rooms," she said, laughing after
I had greeted her and closed the door.

"Well," I said, "it's scarcely the first time you've honoured me with a
visit, is it?  And surely you need not trouble very much about Mrs.
Percival."

"Oh, she really grows more straight-backed every day," Mabel pouted.  "I
mustn't go here, and I mustn't go there, and she's afraid of me speaking
with this man, and the other man is not to be known, and so on.  I'm
really growing rather sick of it, I can tell you," she declared, seating
herself in the chair I had just vacated, unloosing her heavy sable cape,
and stretching a neat ankle to the fire.

"But she's been an awfully good friend to you," I argued.  "As far as I
can see, she's been the most easy-going of chaperons."

"The perfect chaperon is the one who can utterly and effectually efface
herself five minutes after entering the room," Mabel declared.  "And I
will give Mrs. Percival her due, she's never clung on to me at dances,
and if she's found me sitting out in a dim corner she has always made it
a point to have an urgent call in an opposite direction.  Yes," she
sighed, "I suppose I oughtn't to grumble when I recollect the snappy old
tabbies in whose hands some girls are.  There's Lady Anetta Gordon, for
instance, and Vi Drummond, both pretty girls out last season, but whose
lives are rendered perfect tortures by those two ugly old hags who cart
them about.  Why, they've both told me they dare not raise their eyes to
a man without a snappy lecture next day on polite manners and maiden
modesty."

"Well," I said frankly, standing on the hearthrug, and looking down at
her handsome figure: "I really don't think you have had much to complain
about up to the present.  Your poor father was most indulgent, and I'm
sure Mrs. Percival, although she may seem rather harsh at times, is only
speaking for your own benefit."

"Oh, I know I'm a very wilful girl in your eyes," she exclaimed, with a
smile.  "You always used to say so when I was at school."

"Well, to tell the truth, you were," I answered quite openly.

"Of course.  You men never make allowance for a girl.  You assume your
freedom with your first long trousers, while we unfortunate girls are
not allowed a single moment alone, either inside the house or out of it.
No matter whether we be as ugly as Mother Shipton or as beautiful as
Venus, we must all of us be tied up to some elder woman, who very often
is just as fond of a mild flirtation as the simpering young miss in her
charge.  Forgive me for speaking so candidly, won't you, Mr. Greenwood,
but my opinion is that the modern methods of society are all sham and
humbug."

"You're not in a very polite mood to-day, it seems," I remarked, being
unable to restrain a smile.

"No, I'm not," she admitted.  "Mrs. Percival is so very aggravating.  I
want to go down to Mayvill this afternoon, and she won't let me go
alone."

"Why do you so particularly wish to go there alone?"

She flushed slightly, and appeared for a moment to be confused.

"Oh, well, I don't want to go alone very particularly, you know," she
tried to assure me.  "It is the foolishness of not allowing me to travel
down there like any other girl that I object to.  If a maid can take a
railway journey alone, why can't I?"

"Because you have the _convenances_ of society to respect--the domestic
servant need not."

"Then I prefer the lot of the domestic," she declared in a manner which
told me that something had annoyed her.  For my own part I should have
regretted very much if Mrs. Percival had consented to her going down to
Herefordshire alone, while it also seemed apparent that she had some
secret reason of her own for not taking her elder companion with her.

What, I wondered, could it be?

I inquired the reason why she wished to go to Mayvill without even a
maid, but she made an excuse that she wanted to see the other four
hunters were being properly treated by the studs-man, and also to make a
search through her father's study to ascertain whether any important or
confidential papers remained there.  She had the keys, and intended to
do this before that odious person, Dawson, assumed his office.

This suggestion, evidently made as an excuse, struck me as one that
really should be acted upon without delay, yet it was so very plain that
she desired to go alone that at first I hesitated to offer to accompany
her.  Our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that I
could of course offer to do so without overstepping the bounds of
propriety, nevertheless I resolved to first endeavour to learn the
reason of her strong desire to travel alone.

She was a clever woman, however, and had no intention of telling me.
She had a strong and secret desire to go down alone to that fine old
country house that was now her own, and did not desire that Mrs.
Percival should accompany her.

"If you are really going to search the library, Mabel, had I not better
accompany and help you?"  I suggested presently.  "That is, of course,
if you will permit me," I added apologetically.

For a moment she was silent, as though devising some means out of a
dilemma, then she answered--

"If you'll come, I'll of course be only too delighted.  Indeed, you
really ought to assist me, for we might discover some key to the cipher
on the cards.  My father was down there for three days about a fortnight
before his death."

"When shall we start?"

"At three-thirty from Paddington.  Will that suit you?  You shall come
and be my guest."  And she laughed mischievously at such utter break-up
of the _convenances_ and the probable chagrin of the long-suffering Mrs.
Percival.

"Very well," I agreed; and ten minutes later I went down with her and
put her, smiling sweetly, into her smart victoria, the servants of which
were now in mourning.

You perceive that I was playing a very dangerous game?  And so I was; as
you will afterwards see.

At the hour appointed I met her at Paddington, and putting aside her sad
thoughtfulness at her bereavement we travelled together down to Dunmore
Station, beyond Hereford.  Here we entered the brougham awaiting us, and
after a drive of nearly three miles, descended before the splendid old
mansion which Burton Blair had bought two years before for the sake of
the shooting and fishing surrounding it.

Standing in its fine park half-way between King's Pyon and Dilwyn,
Mayvill Court was, and is still, one of the show places of the county.
It was an ideal ancestral hall.  The grand old gabled house with its
lofty square towers, its Jacobean entrance, gateway and dovecote, and
the fantastically clipped box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint
old-fashioned garden, possessed a delightful charm which few other
ancient mansions could boast, and a still further interesting feature
lay in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even to the minutest
detail.  For close on three hundred years it had been held by its
original owners, the Baddesleys, until Blair had purchased it--
furniture, pictures, armour, everything just as it stood.

It was nearly nine o'clock when Mrs. Gibbons, the elderly housekeeper,
welcomed us, in tears at the death of her master, and we passed into the
great oak-panelled hall in which hung the sword and portrait of the
gallant cavalier.  Captain Harry Baddesley, of whom there still was told
a romantic story.  Narrowly escaping from the battle-field, the captain
spurred homewards, with some of Cromwell's soldiers close at his heels;
and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed him in the
secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the house.  Little
daunted, the lady assisted them and personally conducted them over the
mansion.  As in so many instances, the secret room was entered from the
principal bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the Roundheads had their
suspicions aroused.  So they decided to stay the night.

The hunted man's wife sent them an ample supper and some wine which had
been carefully drugged, with the result that the unwelcome visitors were
very soon soundly asleep, and the gallant captain, before the effects of
the wine had worn off, were far beyond their reach.

Since that day the old place had remained absolutely unchanged, with its
rows of dark, time-mellowed family portraits in the big hall, its
Jacobean furniture and its old helmets and pikes that had borne the
brunt of Naseby.  The night was bitterly cold.  In the great open hearth
huge logs were blazing, and as we stood there to warm ourselves after
our journey, Mrs. Gibbons, who had been apprised of our advent by
telegraph, announced that she had prepared supper for us as she knew we
could not arrive in time for dinner.

Both she and her husband expressed the deepest sympathy with Mabel in
her bereavement, and then having removed our coats we went on into the
small dining-room, where supper was served by Gibbons and the footman
with that old-fashioned stateliness characteristic of all in that fine
old-world mansion.

Gibbons and his wife, old retainers of the former owners, were, I think,
somewhat surprised that I had accompanied their young mistress alone,
nevertheless Mabel had explained to them how she wished to make a search
of her father's effects in the library, and that for that reason she had
invited me to accompany her.  Yet I must confess that I, on my part, had
not yet formed any conclusion as to the real reason of her visit.  That
there was some ulterior motive in it I felt certain, but what it was I
could not even guess.

After supper Mrs. Gibbons took my pretty companion to her room, while
Gibbons showed me the one prepared for me, a long big chamber on the
first floor, from the windows of which I had a wide view over the
undulating lawns to Wormsley Hill and Sarnesfield.  I had occupied the
room on several occasions, and knew it well, with its great old carved
four-poster bed, antique hangings, Jacobean chests and polished oaken
ceiling.

After a wash I rejoined my dainty little hostess in the library--a big,
long, old room, where a fire burned brightly and the lamps were softly
shaded with yellow silk.  Over the fireplace were carved in stone the
three water-bougets of the Baddesleys, with the date 1601, while the
whole room from end to end was lined with brown-backed books that had
probably not been disturbed for half-a-century.

After Mabel had allowed me a cigarette and told Gibbons that she did not
wish to be disturbed for an hour or so, she rose and turned the key
behind the servants, so that we might carry out the work of
investigation without interruption.

"Now," she said, turning her fine eyes upon me with an excitement she
could not suppress as she walked to the big writing-table and took her
father's keys from her pocket, "I wonder whether we shall discover
anything of interest.  I suppose," she added, "it is really Mr.
Leighton's duty to do this.  But I prefer that you and I should look
into my father's affairs prior to the inquisitive lawyer's arrival."

It almost seemed as if she half-expected to discover something which she
desired to conceal from the solicitor.

The dead man's writing-table was a ponderous old-fashioned one of carved
oak, and as she unlocked the first drawer and turned out its contents, I
drew up chairs and settled with her in order to make a methodical and
thorough examination.  The papers, we found, were mostly letters from
friends, and correspondence from solicitors and brokers regarding his
investments in various quarters.  From some which I read I gathered what
enormous profits he had made over certain deals in Kaffirs, while in
certain other correspondence were allusions to matters which, to me,
were very puzzling.

Mabel's eager attitude was that of one in search of some document or
other which she believed to be there.  She scarcely troubled to read any
of the letters, merely scanning them swiftly and casting them aside.
Thus we examined the contents of one drawer after another until I saw
beneath her hand a blue foolscap envelope sealed with black wax, and
bearing the superscription in her father's handwriting:--

"To be opened by Mabel after my death.--Burton Blair."

"Ah!" she gasped in breathless haste.  "I wonder what this contains?"
And she eagerly broke the seals, and drew forth a sheet of foolscap
closely written, to which some other papers were attached by means of a
brass fastener.

From the envelope, too, something fell, and I picked it up, finding to
my surprise that it was a snap-shot photograph much worn and tattered,
but preserved by being mounted upon a piece of linen.  It was a
half-faded view of a country crossroads in a flat and rather dismal
country, with a small lonely house, probably once an old toll-house,
with high chimneys standing on the edge of the highway, a small strip of
flower-garden railed off at the side.  Before the door was a rustic
porch covered by climbing roses, and out on the roadside an old Windsor
armchair that had apparently just been vacated.

While I was examining the view beneath the lamp-light, the dead man's
daughter was reading swiftly through those close lines her father had
penned.

Suddenly she uttered a loud cry as though horrified by some discovery,
and, startled, I turned to glance at her.  Her countenance had changed;
she was blanched to the lips.

"No!" she gasped hoarsely.  "I--I can't believe it--I won't!"

Again she glanced at the paper to re-read those fateful lines.

"What is it?"  I inquired anxiously.  "May I not know?"  And I crossed
to where she stood.

"No," she answered firmly, placing the paper behind her.  "No!  Not even
you may know this!"  And with a sudden movement she tore the paper to
pieces in her hands, and ere I could rescue it, she had cast the
fragments into the fire.

The flames leapt up, and next instant the dead man's confession--if such
it were--was consumed and lost for ever, while his daughter stood,
haggard, rigid and white as death.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

IN WHICH TWO CURIOUS FACTS ARE ESTABLISHED.

Mabel's sudden action both annoyed and surprised me, for I had believed
that our friendship was of such a close and intimate character that she
would at least have allowed me sight of what her father had written.

Yet when, next second, I reflected that the envelope had been specially
addressed to her, I saw that whatever was contained therein had been
intended for her eye alone.

"You have discovered something which has upset you?"  I said, looking
straight into her white, hard-drawn face.  "I hope it is really nothing
very disconcerting?"

She held her breath for a moment, her hand instinctively upon her breast
as though to still the wild beating of her heart.

"Ah! unfortunately it is," was her answer.  "I know the truth now--the
awful, terrible truth."  And without a word of warning she covered her
face with her hands and burst into a torrent of tears.

At her side in an instant I was striving to console her, but I quickly
realised what a deep impression of dismay and horror those written words
of her dead father had produced upon her.  She was filled with grief,
and utterly inconsolable.

The quiet of that long, old-fashioned room was unbroken save for her
bitter sobs and the solemn tick-tock of the antique grandfather clock at
the further end of the apartment.  My hand was placed tenderly upon the
poor girl's shoulder, but it was a long time ere I could induce her to
dry her tears.

When she did so, I saw by her face that she had become a changed woman.

Walking back to the writing-table she took up the envelope and re-read
the superscription which Blair had written upon it, and then for the
first time her eyes fell upon the photograph of that lonely house by the
crossways.

"Why!" she cried, startled, "where did you find this?"

I explained that it had dropped from the envelope, whereupon she took it
up and gazed, for a long time upon it.  Then, turning it over, she
discovered what I had not noticed, namely, written faintly in pencil and
half effaced were the words, "Owston crossroads, 9 miles beyond
Doncaster on the Selby Road.--B.  B."

"Do you know what this is?"

"No, I haven't the least idea," I answered.  "It must be something of
which your father was very careful.  It seems to be well worn, too, as
though carried in somebody's pocket."

"Well," she said, "I will tell you.  I had no idea that he still
preserved it, but I suppose he kept it as a souvenir of those weary
journeys of long ago.  This photograph," she added, holding it still in
her hand, "is the picture of the spot for which he searched every
turnpike in England.  He had the photograph but nothing else to guide
him to the spot, and we were therefore compelled to tramp all the main
roads up and down the country in an attempt to identify it.  Not until
nearly a year after you and Mr. Seton had so kindly placed me at school
at Bournemouth did my father, still on his lonely tramp, succeed in
discovering it after a search lasting over three years.  He identified
it one summer evening as the crossways at Owston, and he found living in
that house the person of whom he had been all those weary months in
search."

"Curious," I said.  "Tell me more about it."

"There is nothing else to tell, except that, by identifying the house,
he obtained the key to the secret--at least, that is what I always
understood from him," she said.  "Ah, I recollect all those long
wearying walks when I was a girl, how we trudged on over those long,
white, endless roads, in sunshine and in rain, envying people in
carriages and carts, and men and women on bicycles, and yet my courage
always supported by my father's declaration that great fortune must be
ours some day.  He carried this photograph with him always, and almost
at each crossroad he would take it out, examine the landscape and
compare it, not knowing, of course, but that the old toll-house might
have been pulled down since the taking of the picture."

"Did he never tell you the reason why he wished to visit that house."

"He used to say that the man who lived there--the man who used to sit on
summer evenings in that chair outside, was his friend--his good friend;
only they had been parted for a long time, and he did not know that my
father was still alive.  They had been friends abroad, I fancy, in the
days when my father was at sea."

"And the identification of this spot was the reason of your father's
constant wanderings?"  I exclaimed, pleased that I had at last cleared
up one point which, for five years or so, had been a mystery.

"Yes.  A month after he had made the discovery he came to Bournemouth,
and told me in confidence that his dream of great wealth was about to be
realised.  He had solved the problem, and within a week or two would be
in possession of ample funds.  He disappeared, you will remember, almost
immediately, and was away for a month.  Then he returned a rich man--so
rich that you and Mr. Seton were utterly dumbfounded.  Don't you
recollect that night at Helpstone, after I had come from school to spend
a week with my father on his return?  We were sitting together after
dinner and poor father recalled the last occasion when we had all
assembled there--the occasion when I was taken ill outside," she added.
"And don't you recollect Mr. Seton appearing to doubt my father's
statement that he was already worth fifty thousand pounds."

"I remember," I answered, as her clear eyes met mine.  "I remember how
your father struck us utterly dumb by going upstairs and fetching his
banker's pass-book, which showed a balance of fifty-four thousand odd
pounds.  After that he became more than ever a mystery to us.  But tell
me," I added in a low, earnest voice, "what have you discovered to-night
that has so upset you?"

"I have nearly found proof of a fact that I have dreaded for years--a
fact that affects not only my poor father's memory, but also myself.  I
am in peril--personal danger."

"How?"  I asked quickly, failing to understand her meaning.  "Recollect
that I promised your father to act as your protector."

"I know, I know.  It is awfully good of you," she said, looking at me
gratefully with those wonderful eyes that had always held me fascinated
beneath the spell of her beauty.  "But," she added, shaking her head
sorrowfully, "I fear that in this you will be powerless.  If the blow
falls, as it must sooner or later, then I shall be crushed and helpless.
No power, not even your devoted friendship, can then save me."

"You certainly speak very strangely, Mabel.  I don't follow you at all."

"I expect not," was her mechanical answer.  "You do not know all.  If
you did, you would understand the peril of my position and of the great
danger now threatening me."

And she stood motionless as a statue, her hand upon the corner of the
writing-table, her eyes fixed straight into the blazing fire.

"If the danger is a real one, I consider I ought to be aware of it.  To
be forewarned is to be forearmed!"  I remarked decisively.

"It is a real one, but as my father has confessed the truth to me alone,
I am unable to reveal it to you.  His secret is mine."

"Certainly," I answered, accepting her decision, which, of course, was
but natural in the circumstances.  She could not betray her dead
father's confidence.

Yet if she had done, how altered would have been the course of events!
Surely the story of Burton Blair was one of the strangest and most
romantic ever given to man to relate, and as assuredly the strange
circumstances which occurred after his decease were even more remarkable
and puzzling.  The whole affair from beginning to end was a complete
enigma.

Later, when Mabel grew slightly calmer, we concluded our work of
investigation, but discovered little else of interest save several
letters in Italian, undated and unsigned, but evidently written by Dick
Dawson, the millionaire's mysterious friend--or enemy.  On reading them
they were, I found, evidently the correspondence of an intimate
acquaintance who was sharing Blair's fortune and secretly assisting him
in the acquisition of his wealth.  There was much mention of "the
secret," and repeated cautions against revealing anything to Reggie or
to myself.

In one letter I found the sentences in Italian: "My girl is growing into
quite a fine lady.  I expect she will become a Countess, or perhaps a
Duchess, one day.  I hear from your side that Mabel is becoming a very
pretty woman.  You ought, with your position and reputation, to make a
good match for her.  But I know what old-fashioned ideas you hold that a
woman must marry only for love."

On reading this, one fact was vividly impressed upon me, namely, that if
this man Dawson shared secretly in Blair's wealth he surely had no
necessity to obtain his secret by foul means, when he already knew it.

The clock on the stables chimed midnight before Mabel rang for Mrs.
Gibbons, and the latter's husband followed, bringing me a night-cap of
whisky and some hot water.

My little companion merrily pressed my hand, wishing me good-night, and
then retired, accompanied by the housekeeper, while Gibbons himself
remained to mix my drink.

"Sad thing, sir, about our poor master," hazarded the well-trained
servant, who had been all his life in the service of the previous
owners.  "I fear the poor young mistress feels it very much."

"Very much indeed, Gibbons," I answered, taking a cigarette and standing
with my back to the fire.  "She was such a devoted daughter."

"She is now mistress of everything, Mr. Ford told us when he was down
three days ago."

"Yes," I said, "everything.  And I hope that you and your wife will
serve her as well and as faithfully as you have done her father."

"We'll try, sir," was the grave, grey-haired man's response.
"Everybody's very fond of the young mistress.  She's so very good to all
the servants."  Then, as I remained silent, he placed my candle in
readiness on the table, and, bowing, wished me good-night.

He closed the door, and I was alone in that great silent old room where
the darting flames cast weird lights across into the dark recesses, and
the long, old Chippendale clock ticked on solemnly as it had done for a
century past.

Having swallowed my hot drink, I returned again to my dead friend's
writing-table, carefully examining it to see whether it contained any
secret drawers.  A methodical investigation of every portion failed to
reveal any spring or unsuspected cavity, therefore, after glancing at
that photograph which had taken Blair those many months of weary
tramping to identify, I extinguished the lamps and passing through the
great old hall with the stands of armour which conjured up visions of
ghostly cavaliers, ascended to my room.

The bright fire gave the antique place with those rather funereal
hangings a warm and cosy appearance in contrast to the hard frost
outside, and feeling no inclination to sleep just then, I flung my self
into an arm-chair and sat with arms folded, pondering deeply.

Again the stable-clock chimed--the half-hour--and then I think I must
have dozed, for I was awakened suddenly by a light, stealthy footstep on
the polished oaken floor outside my door.  I listened, and distinctly
heard some one creeping lightly down the big old Jacobean staircase,
which creaked slightly somewhere below.

The weird ghostliness of the old place and its many historic traditions
caused me, I suppose, some misgivings, for I found myself thinking of
burglars and of midnight visitants.  Again I strained my ears.  Perhaps,
after all, it was only a servant!  Yet, when I glanced at my watch, and
found it to be a quarter to two, the suggestion that the servants had
not retired was at once negatived.

Suddenly, in the room below me, I distinctly heard a slow, har

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