Buch lesen: «The Day of Temptation», Seite 15

“Here you are. Fill it up, while I arrange the tube.”

Then, while the Doctor carefully filled the box with some greyish-white powder from a tiny green glass bottle on the table, Nenci took up a tube of thin glass about an inch long, one of the two or three which Malvano had just filled with acid and hermetically sealed by the aid of his spirit-lamp and blow-pipe. This he carefully inserted in the opening, afterwards replacing the closed box of grey compound, securing it deeply in its place by the two little steel springs.

Again he placed it upon the table, and, retreating a few steps, stood admiring it.

“The reproductions are all absolutely perfect,” he observed. “We’ve only now to prove that our calculations are correct. Come, let’s go. If anybody meets us, they’ll think you’ve been called out to some urgent case. Therefore we’re safe enough.”

“Very well,” the Doctor agreed; and both put on their coats and went out, Nenci with the bust covered carefully beneath the long ulster he assumed in the hall.

Noiselessly they let themselves out by the servants’ entrance, crossed the large paved yard to the stables, and, finding a spade, the Doctor hid it beneath his overcoat. Then, crossing the lawn, they passed through a gap in the boundary fence, and was soon skirting a high hedge-row, proceeding towards the open country, crossing field after field until about twenty minutes later they paused at a lonely spot. The place where they halted was so dark that they could scarcely see one another, but the mossy, marshy ground was soft beneath their feet; therefore the Doctor, knowing the country well, suggested that this was the spot where the experiment should take place. His companion at once acquiesced, and the Doctor, speaking in a low undertone, drove his spade deep into the earth, and worked away digging a hole, although he could scarce see anything in that pitch darkness.

Presently Nenci, placing the bust upon the ground, boldly struck a match, and by its fickle light ascertained the depth of the hole. Malvano was still working away, fearful lest they should be discovered, the perspiration dropping from his brow in great beads.

“I think that’s deep enough,” he said after some minutes had elapsed. Then, striking another vesta, he glanced intently at his watch to ascertain the exact time. He handed the Doctor the matches, asking him to strike another, and by its aid held the bust upside down and moved the base very carefully round. When at last he had placed it at the exact point, he knelt and slowly lowered it into the hole which had been dug. Both men, working like moles in the dark, quickly replaced the earth, Nenci stamping it down with his feet. At risk of detection – for a lighted match can be seen a long way on a dark night – they struck two more vestas in order that they might the more completely hide the beautiful little work of art upon which Nenci had been engaged so many hours that day.

When it had been entirely covered, and the ploughed land rearranged, both men retreated rather hurriedly across a couple of fields, and at an old weather-worn stile stood and waited, peering back into the darkness.

The chimes of a distant church sounded over the hills; then the dead silence of the night fell again unbroken, save for the mournful sighing of the wind. For fully five minutes they waited, uttering no word.

“It’s failed,” Malvano at last exclaimed disappointedly, in an excited half-whisper.

“I tell you it can’t fail,” the other answered quickly. “I ought to know something of such contrivances.” Malvano muttered some words expressive of doubt, but scarce had they left his lips when all of a sudden there was a blood-red flash, a loud report, and tons of earth and stones shot skyward in the darkness, some falling unpleasantly close to them.

“Holy Virgin!” ejaculated the Doctor. “It’s terrible! By Heaven it is!”

“Nothing could withstand that,” Nenci observed enthusiastically, with an air of complete satisfaction. “I told you it was absolutely deadly.”

The report had caused the earth to tremble where they stood, and, borne upon the night wind, had no doubt been heard for miles around. Losing no time, they sped quickly forward towards the spot, and there in the gloom discerned that a great oak in the vicinity had been shattered, its branches hanging torn and broken, while at the spot where the little bust had been buried, was a wide, deep, funnel-shaped hole. Some great hazel bushes in the vicinity had been torn up by the roots and hurled aside, while on every hand was ample evidence of the terrific and irresistible force of the explosion.

“The strength of the compound is far greater than I ever imagined! It’s frightful?” exclaimed the Doctor, gazing around half fearfully. “But let’s get back, or some one, attracted by the report, may be astir. What will people think when it’s discovered in the morning?”

“They’ll only believe that lightning has done it,” Nenci said airily, as, thrusting their hands into their overcoat pockets they retraced their steps, bending against the icy wind sweeping across the open land.

In passing back across the lawn both were too preoccupied with their own thoughts to detect that behind the privet hedge was a crouching figure, and that the person so concealed had probably watched all their mysterious movements and taken the keenest interest in their extraordinary midnight experiment.

Chapter Twenty Eight
The Trick of a Trickster

One afternoon, a week later, Gemma was idling in her cosy private sitting-room at the Hotel Victoria. She had returned there in an involuntary manner, because it was the only hotel she knew in London. It had been a wet, dismal day, and by three o’clock it had become so dark that she had been compelled to switch on the electric light in order to see to write. During two hours she had not risen, but had continued covering sheet after sheet of foolscap with her fine angular writing. She wrote with the air of one accustomed to write, folding down the left-hand edge of her paper so as to create a margin and writing on one side of the sheet only. Before commencing, she had several times read through a long and apparently deeply interesting letter, making careful notes upon it before commencing. Then, drawing her chair closer to the table, she took up her pen and wrote away at express speed, now and then halting to reflect, but quickly resuming until she had filled a dozen folios. At last she concluded abruptly, and without signature, afterwards leaning back in her little Chippendale armchair, turning over the numbered pages, and reading through what she had written. When she had finished, she paused and looked straight before her blankly. Her lips moved, but no sound escaped them. Presently she took from the dressing-bag open beside her a large linen-lined blue envelope, whereon was printed in Italian “Private. – To His Excellency the Marquis Montelupo, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rome.” Into this she placed what she had written, afterwards sealing it at each corner and in the centre, in the manner the Italian Administration of Posts requires insured letters to be secured.

This done, she paused, resting her head wearily on her hands, as if tired out. Suddenly there was a loud rap at the door, and one of the hotel message-boys entered with a card.

“Show him up at once,” Gemma answered in her broken English, after she had glanced at the name; and a few minutes later a sour-faced, middle-aged Italian entered, bowing.

“Good-evening, Califano,” she said. “It is quite ready;” and she handed him the secret despatch. “You leave for Rome to-night – eh?”

“Si – Signora Contessa,” the man answered. “I arrived in London only an hour ago, and I leave again subito. The Marquis has sent me expressly for this.”

“Then see that he gets it at the earliest possible moment,” she said quickly. “It is of the utmost secrecy and importance.”

“I quite understand, Signora Contessa,” the man courteously replied, carefully placing the envelope in the breast-pocket of his heavy frieze overcoat. “His Excellency has already given me instructions.”

“Va bene. Then go. Make all haste, for every hour lost may place Italy in greater jeopardy. Remember that your early arrival is absolutely imperative.” She spoke authoritatively, and it was evident that they were not strangers.

“I shall not lose an instant,” answered the Minister’s private messenger. “The Contessa has no further commands?” he added inquiringly.

“None,” she answered briefly. “Arivederci!”

“Arivederci, Signora Contessa,” he replied; and a moment later Gemma found herself again alone.

“God forgive me!” she murmured as she paced the room wildly agitated. “It’s the only way – the only way! I have transgressed before man and before Heaven in order to free myself from this hateful tie of heinous sin; I have risked all in order to gain happiness with the man I love. And if I fail” – she paused, pale-faced, haggard-eyed, shuddering – “if I fail,” she went on in a changed voice, “then I must take my life.”

She threw herself into a chair before the fire, and was silent for a long time. The dressing-bell sounded, but she took no heed; she had no appetite. The crowded table d’hôte, with its glare and colour and clatter, jarred upon her highly-strung nerves. She had dined in the great gilded saloon the night before, and had resolved not to do so again. She would have a little soup and a cutlet brought to her room.

At that moment she was calmly, deliberately contemplating suicide.

She sat in the low chair, her elbows on her knees, gazing gloomily into the fire. The loose gown of pale lilac silk, with deep lace at the collar and cuffs, suited her fair complexion admirably, although it imparted to her a wan appearance, and made her look older than she really was, while the tendrils of her gold-brown hair, straying across her brow, gave her a wild, wanton look. Even as she sat, her eyes fixed upon the leaping flames, hers was still a countenance frail, childlike in its softness, purity, and innocence of expression – a face perfect in its symmetry, and one in which it was difficult to conceive that any evil could lurk.

The diamonds upon her fingers sparkling in the fitful firelight caught her gaze. She looked long and earnestly at the strange ring of turquoise and diamonds upon her right hand, and the sad memories it recalled caused her to sigh deeply, as they ever did. Again she remained plunged in a deep debauch of melancholy, until suddenly the was aroused from her reverie by a loud knocking at her door and her hotel number being shouted by the lad in buttons.

“Gentleman wishes to see you, ma’am,” the youngster said, handing her another card.

She glanced quickly at the name, then rising slowly, answered —

“Show him up.”

Her breath seemed to catch in her throat, but to her cheeks there came a slight flush, whether of excitement or of anger it was difficult to determine. Her brows were knit, and, as she glanced at herself in the mirror, she felt dissatisfied with herself, because she knew she looked haggard and ugly.

As she turned away from the glass with a gesture of determination, Frank Tristram entered.

“Well,” she inquired, turning quickly upon him the moment they were alone. “Why have you the audacity to seek me?”

“Hear me out, Gemma, before you grow angry!” he exclaimed, advancing towards her. “I have come to crave your forgiveness;” and he stood with bent head before her, motionless, penitent.

“My forgiveness? You ask that after your attempt to take my life?” she retorted.

“I was mad, then,” he declared quickly. “Forgive me. I ask your forgiveness in order that one you know may be made happy.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Carmenilla. I’m going to marry her,” he explained briefly.

“To marry Carmenilla!” she exclaimed, surprised.

He nodded. “Tell me that you forgive my madness that night,” he urged. “Remember that both you and I are hemmed in by enemies on every side; that our interests are exactly identical. In return for your forgiveness, I am ready to assist you in any way possible.”

Her clear eyes rested upon him with unwavering gaze.

“And you ask my forgiveness,” she said in atone of contempt at length. “You – who murdered Vittorina – a helpless, friendless girl.”

“I – murdered her!” he cried uneasily, with a look of abject terror. This denunciation was utterly unexpected. “What made you suspect that?”

“To any one who had knowledge of the facts, it’s quite plain,” she answered boldly. “Ah! do not try to deceive me. The police were in ignorance, therefore they could have no clue, and could make no arrest. I, however, am aware of the reason poor Vittorina’s life was taken; I know that her presence was detrimental to all our plans, and that she was enticed here, to London, in order that she might die. It is useless for you to protest your innocence to me.” Her face was hard, her eyes fixed immovably upon his.

He shrank beneath her searching glance, and stood before her with bent head in silence.

“You cannot deny that you had a hand in the crime?” she went on relentlessly. “You, a murderer, ask my forgiveness!”

“Ah! Gemma,” he cried hoarsely, “forgive me.” Then, without heeding the terrible denunciation she had levelled against him, continued, “We have both suffered much, you and I; you perhaps more than myself because you have earned ill repute, and been compelled to pose as an adventuress. But those who know you are well aware that you have always been an honest woman, that your so-called adventures have only been taken in order to act the ignoble part which you were compelled to act, and in every way that you are worthy the love of an upright man like Armytage. Forgive me,” he urged in a low, intense voice, stretching forth his hand. “Forgive me!”

Her troubled breast heaved and fell. In that instant she remembered what the black-robed nuns had told her long ago at San Paolo della Croce – that the first step towards penitence was forgiveness. She looked straight into the face of the man before her for several moments in hesitation, then at last, in a low, faltering tone, said – “The evil you tried to do me I forgive freely; but – but I cannot take the hand of a murderer”; and she turned away suddenly, her silken gown sweeping past him where he stood.

“Then you will allow me to marry Carmenilla? You will not denounce me as one who tried to take your life?” he cried eagerly, following her a few paces.

“Your secret will be mine,” she answered coldly. “I have forgotten, and bear you no malice.”

She was standing beside the fire, once again idly contemplating her rings. The diamonds of the quaint one, with its turquoise centre, seemed to glitter with extreme brilliance and with an evil glint that night.

Presently Tristram advanced swiftly, almost noiselessly, until he reached her side. Then again he proffered his hand, asking —

“May we not be friends?”

“We are no longer enemies,” she answered, disregarding his invitation to exchange the hand-clasp of friendship. “This interview is painful,” she added. “I have forgiven you. Surely that is sufficient?”

“I believed you to be my enemy – I thought that you had denounced me to the police on that night when my mad passion got the mastery,” he said apologetically. “I assure you that I have deeply regretted ever since.”

“It is past,” she said in a chilly voice. “To recall it is needless.”

After reflecting for some moments, he commenced to protest his innocence of the crime she attributed to him; but with a gesture of impatience she held up both her hands as if to shut out his presence from her gaze, and then slowly he left the room without further word.

Afterwards she stood, a slim, graceful figure, leaning upon the mantelshelf, gazing down into the fire. Now and then sighs escaped her; once a shudder ran over her, for her thoughts were still weird and morbid. She was debating whether death by her own hand was not preferable to the strange life she had been for the past two years compelled to lead, still dubious as to whether at last she could secure happiness beside the young Englishman whom she loved with all her soul, and for whom she had risked her life.

Through ten days she remained alone in the great hotel and found London horrible. She went out but little, as the weather was gloomy and wet, and spent her time in her warm private sitting-room in reading, or doing fancy needlework. She had written to Armytage, and received an immediate response, which set her mind at ease. He had urged that he might be allowed to see her, but she had replied firmly in the negative. If she desired him to come to her, she would telegraph. In a couple of hours he could be at her side. Fettered as she was hand and foot, knowing that her lover’s enemies sought his life, yet without power to save him, she existed in those days in constant dread lest they should discover his presence in England, and carry out their design. The life of a man is just as easily taken in England as it is in Italy, and she knew well her associates to be desperate, and that they would now hesitate at nothing in order to guarantee success of their plans.

One night, after she had been at the hotel about a fortnight, she dressed her hair as carefully as she could, possessing no maid, and putting on a pretty evening gown of pale-blue, cut low and filled with fine old lace drawn round the throat in the manner of evening dresses in vogue in Italy, she wound around her head a pale-blue silken scarf she had purchased in Livorno, one of those worn by the Livornese girls on festive days, and, assuming a rich cape trimmed with otter, drove in a hansom to Lady Marshfield’s in Sussex Square.

The man-servant, without taking her name, showed her at once to the drawing-room. He had no doubt received instructions. Upon the threshold she stood for an instant holding her breath, as if in fear; then, bracing herself for an effort, entered the room, a striking figure, proud, erect, handsome, the diamond crescent sparkling in her hair, her silken skirts sweeping behind her with loud frou-frou. At that moment she was La Funaro, the notorious woman whose striking costumes had so often been the envy and admiration of fashionable Italy.

In the great apartment there had assembled, in a group near the fire, the Doctor, the Gobbo, Romanelli, and Nenci. All four were in well-cut evening clothes, and were chatting affably, her ladyship, ugly, yet affecting youth, holding a little court about her. On Gemma’s entrance there was an instant’s silence. Then with almost one voice they welcomed her, crying, “Viva, La Funaro!”

Smiling, she shook hands with each in turn, and sank on the silken settee beside her hostess.

“We are still waiting for one other,” her ladyship said, glancing at the clock. “He is late.” Afterwards, turning to Gemma, the eccentric old woman began to pay her all sorts of compliments in very fair Italian, while the men stood together smoking and chatting, sometimes in mysterious undertones.

At last the person for whom they had apparently been waiting entered, hot and flushed. It was Tristram. He shook hands with all, except with Gemma. To her he merely bowed.

Lady Marshfield, a few minutes later, rose and passed into the small inner room – a signal for her guests to follow. Then, when they had entered, the door was locked, Romanelli alone remaining outside in the drawing-room to guard against the possibility of any of the servants acting as eavesdropper. A table had been placed in the centre of the apartment, and around this they at once assembled, while Nenci, opening the lady’s dressing-bag which he carried, took therefrom a small oblong box of polished oak, which he set upon the table, afterwards displaying the exquisite replica of the bust of the reigning sovereign of Italy.

“Beautiful!” they all cried with one accord. “Nothing could be better!”

“Its action is marvellous,” Malvano explained. “We have already tried it. The effect is frightful. When set, it contains explosives enough to reduce every house in this street to ruins.”

They looked at one another and shuddered.

“It’s really very inoffensive-looking,” her ladyship remarked, raising her glasses, deeply interested. “I hope it isn’t charged!”

“Oh dear, no,” Nenci laughed, taking it in his hand. “I’ve brought it here to show how the mechanism is contrived;” and bending towards her, he opened its malachite base, showing the empty receptacle for the explosive compound, the hole for the tiny tube of acid, and the small clockwork mechanism no larger than a watch imbedded deeply in cotton-wool, so as to be noiseless. Standing at the table, he glanced keenly from one to the other as he explained its working. As he handled the bust tenderly, his keen black eyes seemed to shine with an evil light.

When he had concluded, he replaced the mechanical portions he had removed, and put the bust back into the dressing-bag beside him.

“No, no,” Malvano said, smiling grimly, some minutes later. “Don’t hide it away, Lionello. It’s well worth our admiration, and does you credit. This is the last time we shall have an opportunity of seeing it, so let it remain on the table.”

All joined in a chorus of laughter and approbation, and Nenci, fumbling in the bag at his side, reproduced it and placed it upon the table in full view of their gaze. At that moment Gemma, deep in conversation with her ladyship, did not notice that the bust was before them, and not until Nenci and Malvano had left the room together in order to consult with the foppishly dressed young man outside in the drawing-room, did she detect its presence.

Then, with a sudden scream of wild alarm, she dashed forward, her bare arms raised in despair, crying —

“Look! Look! This is not the bust he showed us at first, but another! This one is charged! Fly quickly – all of you! In another instant this house will be in a mass of ruins, and we shall all be blown to atoms! This is Nenci’s diabolical vengeance!”

With one accord they sprang from their chairs and rushed towards the door. Tristram was the first to gain it, turned the handle.

“God! It’s locked!” he shrieked.

Nenci, the sinister-faced man who, with his two infamous companions, had secured them in that room with the frightful engine of destruction in their midst, had ingeniously escaped. Speechless, with faces blanched, they exchanged quick apprehensive glances of terror. Those moments were full of terrible suspense. All knew they they were doomed, and appalled, rooted to the spot by unspeakable terror, none dared to move a muscle or touch that exquisite bust upon the table. Each second ticked out clearly by the Sèvres clock upon the mantelshelf brought them nearer to an untimely and frightful end; nearer to that fatal moment when the tiny glass tube must be shattered by the internal mechanism, and thus cause an explosion which would in an instant launch them into eternity.