The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias

Chapter Twenty Eight

The Stranger in Black

“Forbidden!” I cried, taking her proffered hand and keeping possession of it. “Why is our friendship forbidden? I thought you had accepted my friendship! I do not know the truth about yourself – nor do I wish to know. I only know that I desire to serve you in every way a man is capable. I only ask you to allow me to love you, to let me think of you as my own.”

“Ah, no!” she said, withdrawing her hand. “It is not just that I should allow you to thus go headlong into ruin. My duty is to warn you of the dire consequences of this reckless devotion to myself,” she added with that sweet touch of her woman’s nature that had all along held me charmed. “Hear me, Mr Kennedy, I beseech of you. Pause and reflect upon the consequences. You say you are my friend. That may be so, but when I tell you in reply that no friendship is permissible between us, will it not be best if we part at once —

(About five lines missing here.)

of my return to London – not by mere chance surely, but because I am destined to serve you.”

A man’s arguments in such circumstances are never very logical. What other words I uttered I do not recollect. I only know that her determination to tell me nothing about herself rendered her the more attractive.

But to all my persuasions, my pleadings, and my utterances she was still the same woman of honour, fearful lest I should come to harm through association with her, fearful lest the unknown fate she dreaded should fall upon us both at the hour of our supreme happiness.

At one moment I felt that I was acting foolishly in thus trying to persuade her into accepting me as her friend, and at others the fact that in social standing I was far beneath her, the daughter of a noble house and well-known in London, impressed itself upon me.

For half an hour we walked onward, heedless of where our footsteps led us. She told me of her recent travels in the East with her father, of their delightful time in the cold weather in India, and afterwards in Sydney and Melbourne.

“My father has been a wanderer ever since my poor mother’s death,” she exclaimed, with a touch of sadness. “He will never remain in England long, because life here always brings back recollections of her. They were a very devoted pair,” she added.

“And so you have accompanied him?”

“Yes, ever since I left the convent school in France. My journeys already have included two trips round the world and a yachting voyage to Spitzbergen.”

“Well,” I laughed, “I thought I had some claim to be a traveller; but you entirely eclipse me.”

“Ah, but I am tired of it – terribly tired, I can assure you.”

I told her how I, too, had suffered from that nostalgia that comes sooner or later to most persons who live abroad, that curious indefinite malady of the heart which causes one to long for home and friends, and to waste in the flesh if the desire is ungratified. You who have lived abroad have experienced it.

I told her how I had lived for years beside that brilliant tideless sea until I had become sun-sick and tired of blue skies, whereupon she sighed and said:

“Italy! – ah, yes! I know Italy. I have, alas! cause to remember my visit there.”

“Is the recollection of it so bitter?” I inquired, quickly on the alert.

“Yes,” she answered in a hard voice. “It is years ago now; but I recollect every one of those incidents as vividly as though they only happened yesterday. Milan, Florence, Perugia, Rome – all cities whose very names are now hateful to me. Yet I suppose the past should be of the past.” And she sighed again, her eyes fixed upon the pavement.

What could I say? What question could I put to her?

Could it be that her journey to Italy had had any connection with the strange conspiracy that seemed to be in progress, or was it possible that her travels in the South had been fraught with some youthful love episode of a tragic nature?

Her character, sweet and modest, was yet so utterly complex that I could not understand it. I was, therefore, uncertain of the security of my own position, and thus feared to explain to her that The Closed Book stolen from Harpur Street was in my hands, lest it might be against the interests of the investigations I had undertaken.

She made no mention of the old hunchback from Leghorn, who had no doubt visited at Harpur Street, perhaps even made the house his headquarters. Yet I felt sure that she was acquainted with Graniani just as she knew Selby.

Again and again I reverted to my affection for her, begging and imploring her to view my suit with favour, or if not, at least to allow me to stand her friend. But she was obdurate, although my words caused her much genuine emotion.

I saw that, although driven to desperation by reason of some unspeakable secret, she was nevertheless a woman of honour. If I sought to assist her, I should place myself in deadly peril of my life, she declared. This she would not allow me to do. Why? Was it because at heart she was really my friend?

I wonder if there are others who have experienced a similar feeling – a desire to commence life afresh, guided by a good woman? If they have, they will know the feelings which were mine. I was no mawkish youth, callow in his first affection, and carrying his heart upon his sleeve. On the contrary, I had known love, I had enjoyed my allotted share of it, and just as prosperity had come to me the great sorrow of my life had come also to me, and I had gone abroad to bury myself in an Italian village.

Dusk darkened into night, and the street-lamps commenced to glimmer as we strolled on and on westward, through that maze of highly respectable streets and squares which constitute Bayswater, until we suddenly found ourselves in the boarding-house region of Powis Square. Then, at her suggestion, we turned and retraced our steps to the Edgware Road, proceeding towards the Park. The cloud that had earlier fallen upon her seemed now removed, and she grew brighter.

Her father, she told me, had returned to London, and was at home; but she expected they would both leave again tomorrow for the North.

“To Scotland?” I suggested with some anxiety.

“Oh, I really don’t know,” was her reply. “My father is most erratic in his movements. I only know that he goes to the North, and that I go with him.”

“But tell me,” I asked very earnestly, “has your father ever mentioned his intention of going to Galloway?”

She looked up at me in some surprise.

“Yes, he did so the other day, while we were at Saxlingham,” she responded. “But why do you wish to know?”

“Because I have a reason – a very strong one,” I answered. “He goes with friends, doesn’t he?”

“With me – I know of no one else who is going. We may be going to Castle-Douglas; but of course I am quite in the dark. Very often I have set out from Charing Cross with him and have not known our destination until we have been in Paris or Brussels. Again, we have, on several occasions, been living quietly at home in Grosvenor Street when all our friends have believed us to be on the other side of the equator. It is quite exciting, I assure you, to live in secret at home, see nobody, and only go out at night, and then always in fear of being recognised,” she added.

“But why does your father do these things; he surely has some motive?”

I recollected that the town of Castle-Douglas was near the castle of Threave.

She gave her well-formed shoulders a shrug, and her countenance was overspread by a blank look of ignorance which I was compelled to admit was feigned.

Mystery crowded on mystery. I could make nothing out of it all. Put yourself for a moment in my place, and ask yourself whether you could solve the extraordinary problem surrounding this popular peer and his daughter who, while appearing frequently at the most exclusive functions in London, were sometimes living in absolute secrecy in their own house, or wandering over the face of the world without apparent motive, yet evidently with some fixed but secret object.

The more I reflected, the more utterly mystified I became.

“It is impossible – quite impossible?” she said when, at the Park Lane corner of Grosvenor Street I halted to take leave of her. “We must not meet again. I hope, Mr Kennedy, you will think no more of me,” she added; “because it pains me quite as much as it does you. As I have already told you, I would explain the truth if I were allowed – but I cannot.”

I saw that her eyelids trembled slightly, and I, folding her hand in farewell, pressed it with a deep meaning which she understood, and to which she responded.

“But we are friends, Lady Judith; we are friends, are we not?”

In response she drew a long sigh, and shook her head, saying, “Mr Kennedy, I know you are my friend, and one day, perhaps, I shall require to put your friendship to the test. Until then, let us remain apart, because it will be best so. You know the fears I have – the fear that evil may befall you.”

“I am ready to serve you at any moment,” I answered.

She withdrew her hand, sighing again, and, filled with emotion by my final declaration, hurried away through the hot, oppressive night.

For a moment, full of vague regret, I watched her departure, then turned on my heel and strolled down Park Lane into Piccadilly on my return to Dover Street, my mind full of that sweet-faced woman.

Those strange words of hers rang in my ears. At what did she hint? Tragedy, deep and mysterious, was underlying it all, I was confident, yet as a man of action I felt impelled towards that other spot mentioned in The Closed Book – the grim castle of Threave, that scene of foul deeds, that through the Middle Ages was the home of the Black Douglas. That her father intended to go there was evident, and it therefore behooved us to lose no time in going North and making preliminary investigations.

The advisability of going North without delay filled my mind until I had become oblivious to all about me, and indeed I was walking quite unconscious of the hurrying traffic in Piccadilly until I felt a slight touch on the arm and heard a woman’s low voice exclaim in Italian, “Pardon, Signor Kennedy, but I believe we have met before?”

I started and turned quickly aside to recognise in the speaker the very last person whom I expected to meet in that busy London thoroughfare – the dark-eyed, well-dressed woman whom I had encountered in the prior’s study at Florence, the woman in black who had made confession to Father Bernardo.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Some Explanations

My first thought, of course, was that the woman was a thief, for it was she who had so cleverly stolen The Closed Book from my study at Antignano and carried it to Paris, there transferring it to the hands of old Mrs Pickard, of Harpur Street.

My first impulse was to tax her with the theft; but fortunately I saw a necessity for careful tact, and therefore responded pleasantly in the same language, “Yes, signorina. It was one afternoon not long ago in Florence, if I remember aright.”

“It was,” she said quickly. “I wish to speak with you in private. Where can we go that we are not observed? I know so very little of London.”

For a moment I reflected. If she really wished to give me any information I ought to secure it at all hazards. Her manner was that of one who feared recognition in that public thoroughfare, and wished to speak with me in private; therefore I hailed a passing hansom, and as we were getting in I recollected that, it being dinner-time, we might secure a quiet table in the upstairs room at Scott’s at the top of the Haymarket. Therefore, to that famed restaurant I gave the cabman directions.

Her manner was as though haunted by a grave suspicion that she was being followed, and during our drive along to Piccadilly Circus she scarcely uttered a single word save to express satisfaction at finding me in a giant city like London, and to drop the remark that she had been following me for an hour past – the latter proving that she had seen me with Judith, and had undoubtedly noted my tenderness towards her.

My wooing in those crowded London streets that evening had certainly been strange, but really not extraordinary when one considers how many declarations of love are made among London’s millions amid the roar of traffic and the hurry and scurry of outdoor life. There exist few places in the heart of London that are adapted for lovers’ walks and lovers’ talks, and those few spots are so well patronised that the majority of lovers carefully avoid them. Romance is enacted among the smoke-blackened bricks and mortar of London just as often as in the briar-scented country lane or on the shingly beach of the popular seaside resort. The quiet thoroughfares of London, where one knows not his neighbour, are always more private than any country lane, with its sneaking yokels and the local gossip of its nearest village.

Still, the mystery with which this handsome, dark-eyed woman had accosted me, and the rapidity with which we had driven away, caused me to reflect. She was either my enemy or my friend – which, I intended to discover.

In the upstairs room of the restaurant we found a quiet corner safe from intrusion or observation, and when I had ordered a light dinner I asked for her explanation.

“I arrived in London three days ago,” she explained in Italian, “and have been in search of you ever since. I saw you leave that house in Bloomsbury together with the signorina, and have been following you ever since – oh! so far that I am very tired. But I kept on, because I desired to speak to you. The risk I have run is very great,” and she glanced around apprehensively at the half-dozen diners scattered about the room. “If I am discovered then the worst must come.”

“Why?”

“Because they do not know that I am in London, or that I am determined to warn you.”

“Of what?” I asked eagerly.

“Of this plot against you.”

“By whom?”

“By the persons you believe are your best friends,” she answered, bending across the small table towards me, and speaking in a low half-whisper.

“And why do you wish to give me this warning?” I inquired suspiciously, recollecting that this fine, handsome woman had acted as a thief, and had evidently herself participated in the plot – whatever it might have been.

“Because I am ordered to do so by one who is your real friend.”

“And what’s his name, pray?”

“Padre Bernardo of Florence. It is at his orders that I have sought you tonight.”

Her reply surprised me. The fat, good-humoured prior of San Sisto had certainly been very friendly towards me; but I had never believed, after what had occurred, that he was actually my friend. Had he not, by means of a ruse, endeavoured to induce me to withdraw from my bargain over my precious Arnoldus? Was he not an exceedingly clever and ingenious person, this Bernardo Landini? His actions had been puzzling from first to last, rendered, indeed, doubly mysterious when viewed in the light of my discovery at the end of that rare volume, and by recent events in London and at Crowland.

It was surely curious that he should send this woman to me, of all other persons. Yet somehow she seemed to be in his confidence. If not, why had they talked in his study with closed doors?

Suspicious that this woman had approached me with evil object, I nevertheless allowed her to explain. She was attired very much in the same manner as when I had first encountered her – namely, in plain black, a gown of apparent Parisian make, and a stylish hat that suited her dark beauty admirably, yet not at all loud in design.

She leaned her elbows on the table, and bending forward, with her gloved hands held together, thus explained her object in seeking me:

“I have been sent to warn you,” she said with a strange look in her dark eyes – those eyes that had once haunted me in that sun-blanched city by the sea.

“But you called at my house at Antignano and obtained possession of the manuscript which I had bought of Father Bernardo,” I said. “Why?”

“Because its possession constituted a danger to you,” was her answer, still speaking in Italian.

And I wondered whether she were aware that its vellum leaves were impregnated with a deadly venom that had not yet lost its potency.

“But that was no reason why you should steal the manuscript,” I said, in Italian, rather bluntly.

She raised her wine-glass to her lips and drank slowly in order to reflect. Then, setting her claret down, exclaimed:

“Ah! my action was under compulsion. You should have been warned by the prior of the evil that possession of the book would bring upon you.”

“Well, now tell me, signorina – for I haven’t the pleasure of your real name – ”

“Anita Bardi,” she interrupted.

“Well,” I said, “I wish to inquire one thing – namely, whether our friend the prior has any idea of what the Arnoldus contains?”

“No. He is entirely in ignorance of it. If he had, he certainly would never have been a party to this dastardly plot against you.”

“But what is the motive of this conspiracy?” I inquired, much puzzled.

“Your death,” she answered without hesitation. “Your enemies intend that you shall die.”

“Very charming of them,” I laughed, pretending not to take her words seriously. “But why, I wonder, are they so anxious for my decease?”

“Because you have gained their secret – you are believed to have read and understood what is contained in that newly discovered manuscript.”

“And if I have, I surely purchased the book at the price asked for it?”

“Ah! you see the prior had no right to sell it to you. A mistake was committed from the very first. How did you first know of its existence?”

“Through a dealer in antiques in Leghorn, named Francesco Graniani, an old hunchback.”

“I thought so!” she exclaimed. “I hear that he is in London. All this goes to show that you should be warned.”

“Of Graniani?”

“And of others also. I saw you with Lady Judith Gordon, and – if you will pardon me – you seemed attracted towards her.”

She spoke frankly and looked me steadily in the face with those great dark eyes of hers.

“And if I am?”

“I presume you have not been long acquainted with her?”

“Not very long.”

“Then, before you allow yourself to fall beneath her spell, as you seem to be doing, just make a few inquiries. It will not be difficult, and may be the means of saving you from dire misfortune – perhaps even saving your life.”

“How? I don’t understand.”

“Possibly not. I only ask you to heed my warning. I am not here to explain the motives of others.”

“But you can surely tell me why I should hold aloof from Lady Judith?” I demanded.

“No, I cannot,” she responded, speaking in broken English for the first time, and apparently forgetting herself in her excitement. “If you are not warned it is your own fault.”

“You say you know her,” I observed. “Where did you meet her?”

“In Italy – under strange circumstances.”

“With her father?”

“Yes,” she answered after a moment’s hesitation, and across her countenance there spread a strange look of mystery. “But we need not discuss that subject further,” she added, lapsing again into Italian, which she spoke with a Florentine accent. “I wish to ask your forgiveness for stealing your book. I can only urge leniency on the ground that I acted at the instigation and under compulsion of others.”

“I forgive you if you will tell me who instigated you to commit the theft,” I said.

“No, I cannot do that. I ask your forgiveness, and in order to atone for what I have done I came here to warn you of the great peril which threatens you. Beware of your association with Judith Gordon!”

“What?” I cried. “Do you mean to insinuate that she is my bitter enemy?”

“Beware of her is all I say.”

“And how do you suggest I should act?” I demanded, much surprised at this strange woman’s allegations against my love.

“You should again obtain possession of the Arnoldus. It may help you,” was her curious recommendation.

It was on the point of my tongue to say that it was already in my possession; but my natural caution again asserted itself. The woman was one whom I should deal with diplomatically in order to learn her motive.

“Perhaps you can tell me where it is?” I suggested.

“In the hands of an Englishman named Selby, who lives in that house in Harpur Street which you quitted this evening.”

Then she was evidently unaware that Selby had suffered its loss, and as far as I could judge she seemed dealing honestly with me. This fact puzzled me more than ever. Suddenly I recollected that mysterious sign in the window, and I asked her the meaning of the bear cub.

“Yes,” she answered with a sudden gravity that had not hitherto fallen upon her. “I saw it there today,” she added slowly. “It has a signification, as you suspect.”

“An evil one?”

“Yes, an evil one – stranger than you could ever guess.”

“Will you not tell me?”

But again she shook her head, and declared that a silence was imposed upon her regarding it, as upon other matters. She had merely sought me in order to warn me, an innocent and unsuspecting man, against falling into the cunningly prepared trap laid for me.

She was quite calm, determined, unemotional. Once or twice, as newcomers entered the dining-room, she betrayed fear of recognition, but beyond that seemed absolutely cool and unruffled.

From her I had gathered two facts – namely, that Graniani was somehow at the bottom of the whole of the strange affair, as I had all along suspected, and that the woman I had grown to love was carefully plotting my ruin. This I refused to believe, and frankly told her so.

She allowed me to go on without a word of contradiction. Her manner was that of a well-bred woman, about thirty I judged her to be, her gesture and speech betraying refinement, and her eyes large, expressive, and sparkling. Indeed, she was a woman who might attract any man, and I daresay I should have found myself lost in admiration had it not been for my passionate love for Judith.

“I have only told you the truth, Signor Kennedy,” she answered quietly in Italian. “I would, however, ask you to promise me to tell no one of our meeting. Remember that if you wish for advice in the future you have only to write to me

poste restante

 at Charing Cross, and I shall duly receive your letter.”

The Charing Cross post office is the usual address of foreigners when travelling in England, therefore I knew not whether she suggested that place because of secrecy or convenience. She made no mention of Lord Glenelg or of his search after the treasure; and, thinking that discretion were best, I did not refer to it, for I intended to keep my own counsel even though her allegations and the fact that she had so boldly accosted me formed in themselves an additional mystery.

So we finished our meal,