greatvaulted station, and, wishing the queer old Babbo farewell, I climbed inand was allotted my berth for Calais.
To describe the long, wearying journey back from the Mediterranean tothe Channel, with those wheels grinding for ever beneath, and themonotony only broken by the announcement that a meal was ready, isuseless. You, who read this curious story of a man's secret, who havetravelled backwards and forwards over that steel road to Rome, know wellhow wearisome it becomes, if you have been a constant traveller betweenEngland and Italy.
Suffice it to say that thirty-six hours after entering the express atPisa, I crossed the platform at Charing Cross, jumped into a hansom anddrove to Great Russell Street. Reggie was not yet back from hiswarehouse, but on my table among a quantity of letters I found atelegram 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 andadviser was her dead father's bitterest enemy--the Englishman, DickDawson.
I stood staring at the telegram, utterly stupefied.
The strange couplet which the dead man had written in his will, andurged upon me to recollect, kept running in my head--
"King Henry the Eighth was a knave to his queens. He'd one short ofseven--and nine or ten scenes!"
What hidden meaning could it convey? The historic facts of King Henry'smarriages and divorces were known to me just as they were known to everyfourth-standard English child throughout the country. Yet there wascertainly 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 fatiguedafter my long journey, I took a cab to Grosvenor Square, where I foundMabel dressed in her neat black, sitting alone reading in her own warm,cosy room, an apartment which her father had, two years ago, fittedtastefully and luxuriously as her boudoir.
She sprang to her feet quickly and greeted me in eagerness when the manannounced me.
"Then you are back again, Mr. Greenwood," she cried. "Oh, I'm so veryglad. I've been wondering and wondering that I had heard no news ofyou. Where have you been?"
"In Italy," I answered, throwing off my overcoat at her suggestion, andtaking a low chair near her. "I have been making inquiries."
"And what have you discovered?"
"Several facts which tend rather to increase the mystery surroundingyour poor father than to elucidate it."
I saw that her face was paler than it had been when I left London, andthat she seemed unnerved and strangely anxious. I asked her why she hadnot gone to Brighton or to some other place on the south coast as I hadsuggested, but she replied that she preferred to remain at home, andthat in truth she had been anxiously awaiting my return.
I explained to her in brief what I had discovered in Italy: of mymeeting with the Capuchin brother and of our curious conversation.
"I never heard my father speak of him," she said. "What kind of man ishe?"
I described him as best I could, and told her how I had met him atdinner there, in their house, during her absence with Mrs. Percival inScotland.
"I thought that a monk, having once entered an Order, could notre-assume the ordinary garments of secular life," she remarked.
"Neither can he," I said. "That very fact increases the suspicionagainst him, combined with the words I overheard later outside theEmpire Theatre." And then I went on to relate the incident, just as Ihave written it down in a foregoing chapter.
She was silent for some time, her delicate pointed chin resting upon herpalm, as she gazed thoughtfully into the fire. Then at last she asked--
"And what have you found out regarding this mysterious Italian in whosehands my father has left me? Have you seen him?"
"No, I have not seen him, Mabel," was my response. "But I havediscovered that he is a middle-aged Englishman, and not an Italian atall. I shall not, I think, be jealous of his attentions to you, for hehas a defect--he has only one eye."
"Only one eye!" she gasped, her face blanching in an instant as shesprang to her feet. "A man with one eye--and an Englishman! Why," shecried, "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--theman whose very name is synonymous of all that is cunning, evil andbrutal? 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-eyedEnglishman as I do, or you would wish me dead rather than see me inassociation with him. You must save me!" she cried in terror, burstinginto a torrent of tears. "You promised to be my friend. You must saveme, save me from that man--the man whose very touch deals death!" Andnext instant she reeled, stretched forth her thin white hands wildly,and would have fallen senseless to the floor had I not sprang forwardand caught her in my arms.
Whom, I wondered, was this man Dick Dawson that she held in such terrorand loathing--this one-eyed man who was evidently a link with herfather's mysterious past?
CHAPTER TWELVE.
MR. RICHARD DAWSON.
I confess that I was longing for the appearance of this one-eyedEnglishman of whom Mabel Blair was evidently so terrified, in order tojudge him for myself.
What I had gathered concerning him was, up to the present, by no meanssatisfactory. That, in common with the monk, he held the secret of thedead man's past seemed practically certain, and perhaps Mabel fearedsome unwelcome revelation concerning her father's actions and the sourceof his wealth. This was the thought which occurred to me when, havingraised the alarm which brought the faithful companion, Mrs. Percival, Iwas 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, inconsiderable suspicion. She inquired rather sharply the reason ofMabel's unconsciousness, but I merely replied that she had been seizedwith a sudden faintness, and attributed it to the overheating of theroom.
Presently, when she came to, she asked Mrs. Percival and her maid Bowersto leave us alone, and after the door had shut she inquired, pale-facedand anxious--
"When is this man Dawson to come here?"
"When Mr. Leighton gives him notice of the clause in your father'swill."
"He can come here," she said determinedly, "but before he crosses thisthreshold, I shall leave the house. He may act just as he thinksproper, but I will not reside under the same roof with him, nor will Ihave any communication with him whatsoever."
"I quite understand your feelings, Mabel," I said. "But is such acourse a judicious one? Will it not be best to wait and watch thefellow's movements?"
"Ah! but you don't know him!" she cried. "You don't suspect what I knowto be the truth!"
"What's that?"
"No," she said in a low hoarse voice, "I may not tell you. You willdiscover all ere long, and then you will not be surprised that I abhorthe 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 helphimself."
"And if he had refused--refused to place you in the power of such aperson--what then?"
"It would have meant his ruin," she answered. "I suspected it all theinstant I heard that a mysterious man was to be my secretary and to havecontrol of my affairs. Your discovery in Italy has only confirmed mysuspicions."
"But you will take my advice, Mabel, and bear with him at first," Iurged, wondering within my heart whether her hatred of the man wasbecause she knew that he was her father's assassin. She entertainedsome violent dislike of him, but for what reason I entirely failed todiscover.
She shook her head at my argument, saying--"I regret that I am notsufficiently diplomatic to be able to
conceal my antipathy in thatmanner. We women are clever in many ways, but we must always exhibitour dislikes," she added.
"Well," I remarked, "it will be a very great pity to treat him with openhostility, for it may upset all our future chances of success indiscovering the truth regarding your poor father's death, and the theftof his secret. My strong advice is to remain quite silent, apatheticeven, and yet with a keen, watchful eye. Sooner or later this man, ifhe really is your enemy, must betray himself. Then will be time enoughfor us to act firmly, and, in the end, you will triumph. For my ownpart I consider that the sooner Leighton gives the fellow notice of hisappointment the better."
"But is