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 theenvelope, and took out the sheet of notepaper it contained.
It was from Blair. Dated from Grosvenor Square eighteen days before, itwas in English, and read as follows:--
"_I will meet you if you really wish it. I will bring out the paperswith me and trust in you to employ persons who know how to keep theirmouths shut. My address in reply will be Mr. John Marshall, GrandHotel, Birmingham_.
"_B.B_."
The mystery increased. Why did Blair wish for the employment of personswho would remain silent? What was the nature of the work that was sovery confidential?
Evidently Blair took every precaution in receiving communications fromthe Italian, causing him to address his letters in various names tovarious 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, hesometimes being away a week or fortnight, or even three weeks, withoutleaving his address behind. His erratic movements were now accountedfor.
Consumed by anxiety I waited day after day, spending hours on thatmaddening cipher on the playing-card, until, on the morning of the 6thof March, Carlini having been unsuccessful in Florence, I took him withme up to the old city of Lucca, which, travelling by way of Pistoja, wereached about two o'clock in the afternoon.
At the _Universo_ I was given that enormous bedroom with the wonderfulfrescoes which was for so long occupied by Ruskin, and just before theAve Maria clanged away over the hills and plains, I parted from Babboand strolled tourist-wise into the magnificent old mediaeval church, thedarkness of which was illuminated only by the candles burning at theside altars and the cluster before the statue of Our Lady.
Vespers were in progress, and the deathlike stillness of the greatinterior was only broken by the low murmuring of the bowed priest.
Only about a dozen persons were present, all of them being women--allsave one, a man who, standing back in the shadow behind one of the hugecircular columns, was waiting there in patience, while of the others allwere kneeling.
Turning suddenly on hearing my light footstep upon the marble flags, Imet him next second face to face.
I drew a quick breath, then stood rooted to the spot in blank and utteramazement.
The mystery was far greater than even I had imagined it to be. Thetruth 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 itsmagnificent frescoes, was in such gloom that at first, on entering fromthe street, I could distinguish nothing plainly, but as soon as my eyesbecame accustomed to the light I saw within a few yards of me acountenance that was distinctly familiar, a face that caused me to pausein anxious breathlessness.
Standing there, behind those scattered kneeling women, with the faint,flickering light of the altar candles illuminating his face justsufficiently, 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 oncebefore seen--I knew that he was the man who had made the secretappointment with Burton Blair, yet, contrary to my expectations, he wasattired in the rough brown habit and rope girdle of a Capuchin laybrother, a silent, mournful figure as he stood with folded arms whilethe priest in his gorgeous vestments mumbled the prayers.
In that twilight a sepulchral chill fell upon my shoulders; the sweetsmell of the incense in the darkness seemed to increase with that worldof incredible magnificence, of solitude gloomily enchanted, of wealthstrangely incongruous with the squalor and poverty in the piazzaoutside. Beyond that silent monk whose piercing mysterious eyes werefixed upon me so inquiringly were dark receding distances, traversedhere and there by rainbow beams that fell from some great window, whilefar 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 workof a whole generation of men all carved in living stone, all infinitelydurable in spite of such rare delicacy and already transmitted to usfrom 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 andfingering the huge rosary suspended from his girdle.
A woman dressed in black with the black _santuzza_ of the Lucchesi overher 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 prodigiouswealth around and the rags of the humble supplicant was overwhelming andcruel; between the persistent durability of those many thousand Saintsdraped in gold, and the frailty of that little being with no tomorrow.
The woman was still kneeling, her lips moving in obstinate and vainrepetitions. She looked at me, her eyes full of desolation, divining apity no doubt in mine; then she turned her gaze upon the hoodedCapuchin, the hard-faced, bearded man who held the key to the secret ofBurton Blair.
I stood behind the ponderous column, bowed but watchful. The poorwoman, after a quick glance at the splendour around, turned her eyesmore anxiously upon me--a stranger. Did I really think they wouldlisten to her, those magnificent divinities?
Ah! I did not know if they would listen. In her place I would ratherhave carried the child to one of those wayside shrines where the Virginof the _contadini_ reigns. The Madonnas and Saints of Ghirlandajo andCivitali and Della Querica who inhabited that magnificent old churchseemed somehow to be creatures of ceremony, hardened by secular pomp.Strange as it may seem, I could not imagine that they would occupythemselves with a poor old woman from the olive mill or with herdeformed and dying child.
Vespers ended. The dark, murmuring figures rose, shuffling away overthe marble floor towards the door, and as the lights were quicklyextinguished, the woman and her child became swallowed up in the gloom.
I loitered, desiring that the Capuchin should pass me, in order that Icould obtain a further view of him. Should I address him, or should Iremain silent and set Babbo to watch him?
He approached me slowly, his big hands hidden in the ample sleeves ofhis snuff-coloured habit, the garment which men of his order have newonly once in ten years, and which they wear always, waking or sleeping.
I had halted before the ancient tomb of Santa Zita, that patroness ofLucca whom Dante mentions in his _Inferno_. In the little chapel asingle light was burning in the great antique lantern of gold, which theproud Lucchese placed there ages ago when the black plague was feared.As I turned, I saw that, although watching me narrowly, he still seemedto 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 nohesitation in pronouncing him to be the same man I had met a year ago atBurton's table in Grosvenor Square.
I recollected the occasion well. It was in June, in the height of theLondon season, and Blair had invited me to dine with several bachelorfriends and go to the Empire afterwards. The man now in a religioushabit, shuffling along in his worn-out sandals, had presented the verydifferent figure of the easy-going prosperous man-of-the-world, with afine diamond in his shirt-front and a particularly well-cut dinnerjacket. Burton had introduced him to us as Signor Salvi, the celebratedengineer, and he had sat at table opposite me and chatted in excellentEnglish. He struck me as a man who had travelled very widely,especially in the Far East, and from certain expressions he let drop Iconcluded that, like Burton Blair, he had been to sea, and that he was afriend of the old days before the great secret became so profitable.
&nb
sp; 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 theStock Exchange, a third the heir to an earldom to which he had sincesucceeded, and the fourth Sir Charles Webb, a smart young Guardsman ofthe modern type. After a dinner of that exquisite character of whichBurton Blair's French _chef_ was famous, we all drove to the Empire, andafterwards spent a couple of hours at the Grosvenor Club, concluding theevening 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 andawaiting the person who would never come, I recollected what had, onthat evening long ago, aroused within me a curious feeling of resentmentagainst him. It was this. Having left the Empire, we were standingoutside on the pavement in Leicester Square calling cabs, when Ioverheard the Italian exclaim in his own language to Blair, "I do notlike that friend of yours--Greenwood. He is far too inquisitive." Atthis my friend