The Fourth Plague (8 page)

VII. —THE GOLDEN ANTONIO

“SIGNOR—FOR THE LOVE of Heaven!” The Strand was crowded with a matinee throng, and the idle folk which promenade that famous thoroughfare before the Easter holiday filled the sidewalks.

To the man in a hurry the name of the loitering, sauntering pleasure-seekers was anathema. Frank Gallinford was that man in a hurry, for the 6.30 Burboro' express waits for no man, and, though Charing Cross was in sight, there remained only two minutes to get through the crowd, into the station, and on to the platform.

He cursed the idlers deeply and earnestly as he elbowed and pushed his way forward. To leave the pavement was to court disaster, for the roadway was blocked with traffic, and moreover an intelligent authority had had it dug up at its busiest portion and railed off to half its width for “repairs.”

Frank Gallinford had stepped from the kerb into the roadway, and from the roadway on to the kerb again, dodging between the hawkers who vended their wares; he had sprung away from the wheels of devastating motor-cars, and buffeted stout and leisurely gentlemen in his effort to reach the station on time, but he seemed as far from his objective as ever.

Then he suddenly felt his sleeve clutched and the words—

“Signor, in the name of Mary!”

They were gasped rather than spoken, and the language employed was Italian.

Frank stopped and looked round with a bewildered frown. Who spoke to him in Italian in this most English Strand—and who knew that he was acquainted with the language?

The man at his elbow was unquestionably Latin. His long, cadaverous face, covered with a week's growth of beard, was working almost convulsively in his agitation. The big black eyes that stared at him from beneath two shaggy brows blazed as only Southern eyes can blaze.

In a moment the Englishman's anxiety to catch his train was forgotten. The soft accents which he knew so well, and loved so well, came to his ears like the first sigh of the breeze that ripples the Adriatic on summer nights. It stirred memories of a simple and charming peasantry, it brought visions of the marble palaces of the old Venetian nobility.

“Well, my friend?” he asked, kindly.

“I cannot speak to you here,” said the man, dropping his voice and speaking quickly. “You remember me, Signor?—Romano—I was your foreman on the harbour works at Cattaro.”

Frank remembered, and his hand dropped in a friendly salute on the other's shoulder.

“Remember you, Miguelo mio!” he laughed, “why, however could I forget you! You were the man who swam out to me when I was seized with cramp—confound you, you saved my life!”

A faint smile flickered across the lips of the little Italian, and then the look of anxiety came again.

“Follow me,” he whispered, “this is urgent, you do not know, you cannot understand.”

With no other word, he plunged into the throng, and Frank Gallinford, keeping him in sight, followed.

Romano turned the first corner he reached. It was a steep street which led down into the Adelphi.

Here the stream of traffic dried up. Into the gloomy depths only the most experienced travellers, who knew this contributed a short cut to the District Railway station, ventured, and the two men had the thoroughfare to themselves.

When they had gone fifty yards the Italian stopped, and Frank observed that he chose a spot midway between two street-lamps where the light was dimmest and most uncertain.

“Signor,” he said, speaking rapidly, almost incoherently, “you know me a little. I am a mason, and I was brought to London to work on the new Italian restaurant in Regent Street. I have no friend in London, no one to whom I can turn—and I am in despair “—he wrung his hands, and his voice, though he kept it low by sheer effort of control, was shrill,—“and then I saw your face—your strong, calm English face in that great crowd, Signor—like a saint, Signor….”

Frank was too accustomed to the extravagance of the Italian compliment to feel embarrassed, though he had never overcome the sense of shyness which comes to the more phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon in face of florid flattery.

“I am not feeling particularly angelic, Miguelo,” he said, with a rueful smile as the recollection of his lost train occurred to him.

“Listen, Signor,” the man went on. “Years ago, when I was younger, I was in New York—and for a joke, Signor—I swear it was no more than a youthful jest—I joined a Society. I took oaths—I thought nothing of it. Then I went away to my own country, later to Montenegro, then to Italy again—and now to London. And, Signor, they have found me, my Society. And they tell me I must do horrible things—horrible—horrible.”

He covered his face with his hands and groaned. Frank was puzzled. He knew of these secret societies, had indeed seen their milder manifestations. He had endured an exasperating strike on more occasions than one as a result of some offence given to an official of a society. But never had he glimpsed the tragedy, the underlying horror of these mysterious associations.

He laid his hand gently on the other's arm.

“My friend,” he said, soothingly, “you need not worry—this is England. These things do not happen here. If you are threatened, go to the police.”

“No, no, no!” protested the man, frantic with terror; “you do not understand. My only hope is to get away…if I could reach the Argentine—come—come!”

He dragged the other with him to the nearest street-lamp, fumbling in his pocket the while.

“They want me for many reasons,” he said, “and for this most of all.”

His coat was one of those heavy cloth coats which Italian labourers wear, the corners of the pockets ornamented with tiny triangles of rusty black velvet. From the depths of a pocket the man produced a little case. It looked like a jewel case, and the Englishman observed that it was very new. Romano's trembling hand sought for the catch. He found it after a while, and the satin-lined lid flew open. On a bed of dark blue velvet lay a little medallion.

“San Antonio,” said the Italian, in a hushed, eager voice.

It was a beautiful piece of work. The back ground was made up of small diamonds, the Saint with the Babe was in gold relief. This was no stamped and minted impression, but a piece of rare and delicate carving.

“Signor,” said Miguelo, “a month ago a man who was a friend of mine brought this to me—how it came to him I do not know. He asked me to take care of it, and in time—these were his words, Signor—to restore it—”

A motor-car came swiftly down the street, and the Italian looked round apprehensively.

“Take it!”

He thrust the case into Gallinford's hands, clicking it close as he did it.

“But—”

“Take it—ah!”

The car drew up abreast of them and, as the lacquered door swung open, Romano shrank back against the railings.

Two men alighted, and they were followed by a woman.

She was tall, slim, graceful. Frank could not see her face, for it was thickly veiled, but her voice was low and sweet.

“This is the man,” she said, and pointed to the cowering Italian.

The two men sprang at Romano and caught him by the arms. There was the click of handcuffs.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked Gallinford, though, with a sinking heart, he anticipated the answer.

“This man has taken a jewel of mine,” the lady replied.

“What does she say—what does she say?” asked the Italian. The conversation had been in English; Frank translated.

“It is a lie—a lie!——” screamed Romano, struggling desperately as they dragged him toward the car; “save me, for God's sake, Signor!”

The Englishman hesitated. He had all the national repugnance of a “scene.” He knew that the Italian would at any rate be safe at the police station—and if he were guilty, as it seemed probable, he needed no protection. The whole story was a cock-and-bull invention.

“Where are you taking him?” he asked.

“To Marlborough Street,” said one of the men gruffly.

“Go quietly, Miguelo,” said Frank, turning to the struggling man, “I will follow you.”

But the prisoner had gone limp, he had fainted.

They lifted him into the car and the men jumped in after. The woman waited expectantly. Then Frank saw a second car behind. As the first car manoeuvred to turn, he heard voices in altercation. Miguelo had recovered from his swoon; there was a scuffle, and the Italian's head appeared at the window.

“Signor!” there was agony in his voice, “tell Signor Tillizini—”

A hand was placed over his mouth, and he was dragged back as the car rolled up the hill and into the slow-moving traffic.

Frank waited. He half expected the woman to speak. Then it occurred to him that she would regard him, if not as an accomplice, at least as a friend of the arrested man, and he went red.

She stepped lightly into the second car. This did not turn, but made its way downhill.

It was on the point of moving off when he remembered with a shock that, if he was not the thief, he was all unwillingly a receiver. The jewel was still in his pocket.

The car was on the move when he realized this and sprang to the door of the carriage.

“Madame,” he said, “a word—I have something to say—I have—”

Through the open window of the car he saw the woman draw back.

“I want you——” he began, and jumped back as he saw the flash of descending steel.

He was just in time.

The thin stiletto aimed at him struck the edge of the window, and Frank, temporarily dazed, stumbled to his knees in the muddy road as the car jerked ahead and vanished round the corner of Adam Street.

One glimpse he got of a white hand still clasping the hilt of the quivering poignard—a white hand on a finger of which glowed a square black opal.

He rose slowly to his feet, dumbfounded. He was furiously angry. She had evidently mistaken him for a robber.

He brushed the mud from his knees with a handkerchief, and collected his thoughts, swearing softly.

Here was he, a prosaic young engineer on his way to meet his fiancee in prosaic Burboro', engaged in an adventure which was three parts melodrama and one part comedy.

“This comes from listening to plausible Italians?” he said, savagely. He made his way to the Strand and hailed a taxicab.

“Marlborough Street Police Station,” he directed.

He would rid himself of this infernal jewel and clear himself, at any rate.

The sergeant returned his greeting curtly, taking in the mud-stained figure with professional suspicion.

“Romano,” he said. “No, we haven't a Romano here.”

“He has just been arrested by two of your men,” said Frank.

“No warrant has been executed for a man of that name,” said the sergeant, shaking his head. “Just wait a minute and I'll ask Bow Street.”

He went into an adjoining room, and Frank heard the tinkle of a telephone.

By and by the officer returned.

“Neither Bow Street nor Vine Street know anything about it,” he said.

Briefly the young man told the story of the arrest, omitting only the fact that the jewel reposed in his pocket. He had no desire to find himself detained. With Miguelo to confirm his story and with the prosecutrix present to identify the jewel, it would be different. And he had, too, an overpowering desire to explain to the murderous lady, in person, his honourable intentions.

“No sir,” the sergeant went on, “we've no Italians—we've had enough of them since the ‘Red Hand' started operations in England. But since Mr. Tillizini began working for Scotland Yard, they haven't been so busy.”

“Tillizini?” cried Frank, with a start.

The sergeant nodded.

“That's the gentleman,” he said, complacently; “if you want to know anything about Italian criminals, you'd better see him—108, Adelphi Terrace; anyway, you'd best come back again—the C.I.D. men may be working independently.”

Frank walked in the neighbourhood of the station until ten o'clock that night. He sent a wire to his host and dined at a Piccadilly restaurant.

The clock was striking the hour when he again mounted the steps of Marlborough Street Station.

The sergeant was not alone. Three over-coated men were talking together in one corner of the room.

“Here he is,” said the sergeant, and the three turned and surveyed the young engineer gravely.

“What was the name of that Italian you were inquiring about?” asked the sergeant.

“Miguelo della Romano,” replied Frank. “Have you found him?”

The officer nodded grimly.

“Picked him up in the Embankment Gardens—an hour ago,” he said.

“Where is he?” asked Frank.

“In the mortuary,” said the sergeant, “with twenty-five knife-wounds in his body.”

VIII. —THE RARE COLLECTION

MARJORIE MEAGH SAT AT breakfast with her uncle.

Sir Ralph was in an unusually irritable mood. Breakfast was never a pleasant meal for him, but his fault-finding was generally concentrated upon the domestic shortcomings of his wife and the quality of the food.

Now they took a wider range. He put down his paper suddenly and savagely.

“I wish to Heaven Vera wouldn't go dashing off to town,” he said.

Although he was a domestic tyrant of a common type, he stood in some little awe of his young wife. On three occasions in their lives she had startled him by the vehemence of her rebellion, and with every explosion he had grown less self-confident and less satisfied with his own capacity for commanding the situation.

Marjorie looked up from her letters.

“Vera is making a serious study of the drama,” she said. “You must remember, uncle, that if by any chance she does succeed as a playwright it will mean an immense income to her.”

She was very tactful. She knew that monetary considerations influenced her uncle. It was Vera's career, which she had discovered two years before, when a little play, written for a charitable entertainment, had met with recognition at the hands of the critics.

Though it had pleasantly surprised her husband to the possibility of his having discovered a self-supporting wife, it had been also a source of constant irritation to him. It meant expense, constant visits to the Metropolis, the cost of seats at a theatre, though this latter expense had happily been spared him of late by the discovery of a relation engaged in newspaper work, who had provided complimentary tickets.

But it meant opening the flat in town; it meant the detachment of a servant from a household where the domestic arrangements, as planned by Sir Ralph, were so devised as to fully occupy every moment of the time of every person engaged.

Sir Ralph took up the paper only to put it down again a moment later.

“That scoundrel, Mansingham, has appealed,” he said. “It is monstrous.”

The institution of the Court of Criminal Appeal was a sore point with Sir Ralph. He felt that its creation had been expressly designed for the purpose of annoying him. He had written letters to Times about it, and had expressed himself, at such public functions as gave him opportunity, in no gentle terms. It was remarkable, under the circumstances, that the Court of Appeal continued to sit.

“It is monstrous,” he said again. “It is a slight upon the men who are engaged in carrying out the work of administering criminal law.”

His anger came in little spasms. He had a fresh grievance every few moments. Again his paper came down after an interval.

“That young man, Gallinford, did not arrive last night, Marjorie,” he said, severely. “The young men of to-day seem to be lamentably deficient in good manners.”

“He wired, uncle,” protested the girl. “He said that he was detained in town.”

“Bah!” snapped her uncle, “that isn't good enough. I am a man of the world, Marjorie. These flimsy excuses do not suffice for me, and I advise you, if you desire to be happy—and the only way to be happy,” he said parenthetically, “is to be without illusions—to view these unsupported excuses with suspicion. He is a young man,” he went on, elaborating his grievance, “newly arrived in England after a long absence in a barbarous country—”

“In Italy, uncle,” she murmured, “it isn't exactly barbarous, is it?”

“Barbarous?” he said explosively. “Why, here are two Italian murders in one day!” He flourished the paper in support of his contention.

“Of course it is barbarous! And he comes back to civilization after a long absence, to a beautiful girl, and I admit that you are that, Marjorie,” he said comfortably, with an air of one who was partly responsible for her beauty, “and instead of rushing, as he should, and as young men did in my day, to his fiancee, he breaks his journey in town! It is perfectly inexcusable!”

She did not defend her lover. She knew how valueless such arguments were with her uncle. He was entirely without inclination to reason—at breakfast-time, at any rate.

For the rest of the meal he grumbled spasmodically behind the paper. He reminded her irresistibly of a dog with a bone. From time to time he fired little sentences at her—sentences which had neither beginning nor end, and were generally associated with the Government's shortcomings.

Suddenly she heard the grind of carriage wheels coming up the carriage drive, and jumped from the table. She gave one glance through the window and, without a word to her uncle, flew from the room.

He glared after her in astonishment. In a few minutes she came back, with a delicate flush on her face and laughter in her eyes, leading a tall, broad-shouldered young man, brown of face and smiling a little uneasily, for he did not contemplate the coming interview with any great sense of joy.

“This is Mr. Gallinford, uncle,” said the girl. “You have met him before, haven't you?”

Sir Ralph not only had met him before, but did not wish to meet him then. He was in no mood for introductions to strange people. He had, moreover, a grievance against this young man who had so slighted his hospitality. He greeted Frank Gallinford with a grunt in which he expressed in his bluff, hearty English way, as he imagined it, at once his welcome and a foretaste of the reprimand which was coming.

“I am glad to meet you, sir,” said Frank.

He held out a big, hearty hand and shook Sir Ralph's.

“I owe you an apology for not having come last night.”

Sir Ralph inclined his head. There was no doubt whatever about the apology being due.

“I had a little adventure,” Frank went on, and proceeded to relate the chief events of the previous evening.

In spite of the fact that he had made up his mind to accept no explanation as being adequate, Sir Ralph found himself listening with keen interest. The girl's face showed her concern.

“Oh, Frank,” she said, in a shocked voice, “how terrible! Was he killed?”

Frank nodded.

“I had an interview with the famous detective—what is his name?”

“Tillizini?” said Sir Ralph.

“Yes,” said Frank, “that was his name. A remarkable chap. Of course I handed the locket over to the police, and Tillizini has it now.”

“It's very extraordinary,” said Sir Ralph, with a puzzled frown. “Your description of the locket sounds very much like one I have in my collection.”

A sudden panic of fear passed over him. What if this was the famous locket? What if it had been abstracted without his noticing it?

“Excuse me,” he said.

Half-way to the door he turned. “Will you come along with me?—perhaps your description of the medallion may be useful. I have got a fear—”

He shook his head.

“You don't think it's yours?” said the girl.

“I don't know,” said Sir Ralph. He was obviously agitated. They followed him from the room to his study—a handsome combination between that and the library. From a steel drawer in his desk he took a key and led the way again upstairs.

Sir Ralph was more than an amateur collector. Whatever his judgments might be on the Bench, there were few who could dispute his knowledge of those articles of virtue which it was his delight to collect. The Morte-Mannery collection, though a small one, was famous. It was Sir Ralph's pleasure, from time to time during the year, to show his treasures to the great connoisseurs of Europe.

The joy of possessing something which nobody else had, or if they had, only in a minor degree and in a less valuable form; and, moreover, to hold these wonders of dead craftsmen which were coveted by less fortunate people, and which is the basis of every true collector's pride, was the great passion of Sir Ralph Morte-Mannery's life.

He had devoted forty years to securing and arranging the hundred and fifty lockets which formed his collection. The room in which they lay had been specially constructed with a view to resisting fire and burglars.

It was an open secret that, in rebuilding Highlawns after he had acquired it, the whole scheme of renovation had circled about the collection room. It was more like a prison than a museum, thought Frank, as he followed his conductor through the narrow entrance guarded with steel doors faced with rosewood.

It was lighted by a large window, heavily barred, and the glass itself being set with strong steel network. Burglar alarms of the most ingenious character rendered entrance without detection almost impossible. Floors, wall and roof were of reinforced concrete. One long case ran the length of the room, a strip of carpet on each side forming the only attempt that had been made at comfort. The cases themselves were under heavy wooden shutters, and these Sir Ralph unlocked.

It was a disappointing display to the average man. Row after row of medallions, dull gold, silver, jewels, enamels. There was nothing to excite the enthusiasm of any other than a connoisseur.

Very quickly, one by one, Sir Ralph unshuttered the cases, his anxious eyes running over the neatly-ticketed rows.

“No,” he said, after a survey, “nothing has gone. I thought from your description that my Leonard….”

The fire of the enthusiast came to his eyes. With hands that shook a little he unlocked one case, and lifted out a small gold medallion.

“Why!” exclaimed Frank in astonishment as he took it in his hand, “this is the very locket which the man gave me!”

Sir Ralph smiled.

“That is impossible,” he said. “Impossible! Only two such lockets were known, and one has been irretrievably lost.” He held the little jewel in his hand gingerly. “This and its fellow were made by the greatest artist that the world has ever known, Leonardo da Vinci. The date is probably 1387, and the design is Leonardo's own. It expresses something of the master's genius. As you know, he was a man who was not satisfied with painting pictures; there was no branch of art, from sculpture, to the very mixing of paint, in which he did not interest himself. He was a doctor and a chemist of no mean qualities, and it was after the great plague in Milan in 1386 that he made the two lockets, of which this is the only one extant.

“One he gave to his patron, Il Moro, the usurper of the Duchy, and the other he gave a year or two subsequently to Caesar Borgia. They were both commemorations of his patron's escape from the plague. You will observe on the back”—he turned the jewel over gently—“there is an allegorical representation. You see the picture of the little fiend?”—he pointed it oat with his little finger—“that represents the sickness which visited the whole of Italy. You see the angel?—that must represent his ‘unconquerable patrons.' What the other signs are—” he smiled, and this cheerless room saw all the smiles that Sir Ralph was prepared to bestow upon the world—“are incomprehensible to me. Probably Leonardo was a Futurist.”

He chuckled at his own harmless jest, and the girl listened to him wonderingly, for he was a different man in this atmosphere. She had never seen him so before; he was human, and tender and keen.

“The other medallion,” Sir Ralph went on, “was stolen from the Dublin museum. The thief was traced, after a great deal of trouble, to a cross-Channel boat; he was seen to go on the boat to cross from Harwich to the Hook of Holland. There must have been some of his confederates on board, for in the night a great outcry was heard in one of the cabins, and the detective who watched him saw him fleeing along the deck pursued by two foreigners. Before they could either arrest the men who were following or capture the man himself, he had leapt overboard, and with him, it was presumed, had passed the second medallion.”

“What was the meaning of it all?” asked Frank.

Sir Ralph shook his head.

“We don't know. It was supposed at the time that he was endeavouring to give the jewel to some of his confederates, and that in the act of doing so he was seen. The men who were chasing him that night on the ship gave a plausible explanation; they said they thought he was mad and endeavouring to commit suicide, and they were trying to prevent him.”

He turned the jewel over again, and looked at it lovingly before he replaced it in its case.

“Whatever it was your unfortunate man had,” he said, “it was not the fellow to this.” Outside, he was himself again, cold, hard, commonplace, but that little glimpse of his true character revealed much to Marjorie.

She understood now the ferocity of the sentence he had passed upon Mansingham. His collection was more than wife or child, more precious than ambition; his passion was strong enough to override his sense of justice.

He looked at his watch with a frown. He had remembered one of the unpleasant facts of life.

“Vera has not returned. I thought she would have come down by the same train as you.”

“I was the only passenger for Burboro', as far as I can remember,” said Frank.

Sir Ralph looked at his watch again.

“There's another train in by now,” he said, “she ought to be here.”

He had hardly spoken the words when Vera's voice was heard in the hall below, making inquiries of the servants.

“Oh, there you are,” she cried.

She looked up as the party descended the broad stairway into the hall. For a moment a look of wonder came into her eyes at the sight of Frank.

“You have never met Mr. Gallinford, have you?” asked Marjorie, as she introduced them.

“I am very glad to meet you now, at any rate,” said Vera, cheerfully.

She was glad, too, that there was some other interest to temper her husband's annoyance. That he should be annoyed she took for granted. It was the atmosphere which invariably met her on her return from town.

He looked again at his watch and then at her, and she understood the significance of the examination.

“I am so sorry,” she said, carelessly. “I lost the fast train and had to take the slow one. It was very annoying. I think my watch must have been wrong.”