The Mysterious Mr. Miller
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“But she saw Miss Gilbert and asked for Massari!” I exclaimed. “It was Miss Gilbert who called me and introduced me. I took her up to the dead man’s room, and the sight of him was a terrible shock to her. She’s not exactly his friend; more his enemy, I think.”
“How could she know Massari was here, pray?”
“Ah! I don’t know that. The Italian was probably followed here after his arrival at Charing Cross.”
“Did she explain why the fellow came here?”
“Yes, she told me various things that have utterly stupefied me,” I answered. “She hints that the Italian and the woman Ina Hardwick were in league to take my life.”
“Your life?” he cried. “What absurd romance has she been telling you? Why you didn’t know Massari until yesterday!”
“That’s just it. But nevertheless there’s some truth in what she alleges. Of that I’m quite convinced.”
“Why?”
“For several reasons. One is because she is aware of one curious incident in my life, one of which even you, Sammy, are in ignorance. It is my secret, and I thought none knew it. Yet Massari was aware of it, and she also knows something about it, although, fortunately, not the whole of the details.”
Sammy twisted his small, fair moustache, and was puzzled.
“She actually knows a secret of yours, eh? Then depend upon it she intends to profit by it. Be careful of her, that’s all, Godfrey. She may have known Massari, for she’s mixed up with a very queer lot. But it’s quite evident that she came really to see you. Did she enlist your sympathies in any way; did she ask you to do anything for her – any service, I mean?”
For a few moments I hesitated; then, in order to further convince him, I told him all that had occurred, and repeated her strange story of how the man we knew as Massari had refused to tell the truth and liberate her.
“He probably had sufficient reason,” declared Sammy, in a hard voice, quite unusual to him. “The truth, however, is quite plain. She has spread out her net for you, and you bid fair to fall an easy prey, old fellow.”
“But, my dear chap, I’m pretty wary. Remember I’m thirty-two and am past the adolescence of youth.”
“She’s uncommonly good-looking. You’ve told me so yourself. Admiration is the first stage always,” he sneered.
“But tell me what you know of her,” I urged. “Where did you first come across her?”
“At Enghien, just outside Paris, nearly three years ago. They lived in a rather fine villa, the grounds of which went down to the lake. You know Enghien – a gay little place, with pretty villas and a casino on the lake. Brunet, the dramatic critic of the Temps, introduced her father to me in the American bar at the Grand, and he invited me to go down to his place and dine. I did so, and found several other male guests, men of the smartest sporting set in Paris – mostly Frenchmen. At first I believed Mr Miller was a person of means, but one day a man who said he had known him, told me that he was a ‘crook’. I admit I could not discover what was the source of his income. I only knew that his friends were mostly rich racing men and chevaliers d’industrie, and that he frequently gave very delightful dinners. Though she never dined with her father’s friends, Lucie was often to be seen. She seemed then to be a mere slip of a girl of nineteen or so, extremely pretty, with her dark hair dressed low and tied with a broad bow of black ribbon. The men who frequented the place always addressed her as ‘Bébé,’ and would sometimes take her boxes of chocolate. One evening after dinner somebody suggested a hand at cards, when suddenly I caught Miller doing a trick, and I stood up and openly denounced him. It may have been foolish of me, but I spoke without reflecting. He denied my accusation fiercely, and was supported by his friends. Therefore I took my hat and left the house, now convinced that the fellow was a ‘crook’. After that I made inquiries about him of a man who had been in the Paris sûreté whom I know very well, with the result that I found the Englishman enjoyed half a dozen aliases and was undoubtedly a queer character. His associates were mostly persons known to the police. Even his butler at the villa was a man who had ‘done’ five years for burglary. The theory of my friend, the ex-detective, was that he was allied with a gang of international thieves, those clever gentry of means who operate in the principal cities throughout Europe, and who are so ingenious that they in most cases outwit the police. Though there was not sufficient evidence to justify any direct allegation it was strongly suspected that the source of Mr Miller’s wealth at that moment was the proceeds of a very cleverly planned robbery at the Commercial Bank in Bordeaux. When I told my friend how I had denounced Miller’s trick, he looked grave and said: ‘That was very injudicious. Those people might seek revenge.’ I laughed in derision, but he was so serious, and so strongly urged me to be careful, that I began to repent my boldness in making the charge. Miller and his friends were, so my friend told me, a dangerous lot.”
“But if Lucie has the misfortune to have a father who is a scoundrel, it surely is no reason why she herself should be bad?” I remarked.
“You can’t touch pitch without being soiled, my dear fellow. Think of the life of a young girl among such a crowd as that! Ah! you’ve never seen them – you can have no idea what they’re like.”
“But what direct charge do you allege against her?” I asked. “Speak quite plainly, for I’m neither her friend nor her enemy. She has to-day told me certain things that have held me bewildered, and naturally I’m all curiosity to ascertain something concerning her.”
“Well,” he said, casting himself again into the big chair and smoking vigorously, “it was like this. One day about a month afterwards there came to stay with me at the Continental a wealthy young Chilian, Manuel Carrera by name, whom I had first met when, two years before, we had fought side by side in the streets of Valparaiso during the revolution. He and I were partisans of the Government, of which his father was Minister of the Interior. Now that the Government had been restored he occupied a very important post in the Treasury, and had come to Paris to transact some business with the Banque de France. At first we were together every evening, and very often the greater part of the day, but of a sudden he seemed to prefer to go about Paris alone, for he had, he told me, met some other friends. For a fortnight or so I had very little of his company; but one afternoon he surprised me by saying that he was going down to Enghien to make a call. I offered to accompany him, saying that I could amuse myself at a café while he was calling, and that we might afterwards dine together at the Casino. Truth to tell, I had not been to Enghien since that well-remembered night, and I wanted to see whether the Villa du Lac was still occupied. To my surprise, his destination proved to be that very villa. He left me and entered the big gates before I had time to warn him of Miller, therefore I turned on my heel and took a cab to the café of the Casino situated on the opposite shore of the lake. Where I sat, at one of the little ‘tin’ tables beneath the trees, the water stretched before me, and beyond a green, well-kept lawn and the big white villa were shining through the trees. I lit a cigar and sat wondering. Suddenly across the lawn I saw two figures strolling slowly. One was a slim young girl in a white muslin dress girdled with pale blue, her companion a man in grey flannels and a panama. Then the truth was plain. My friend had fallen in love with Lucie Miller. His frequent absences were thus accounted for. I watched them as they sat together upon the garden seat facing the lake, and saw that he was telling her something to which she was listening very attentively, her head bowed as though in deep emotion. Was he declaring his love, I wondered? For fully half an hour they sat there, when at last he rose, threw off his coat, and then both stepping into the boat at the bottom of the lawn he slowly rowed her away up the lake until behind the island they passed from my sight.”
Sammy was silent, thinking deeply. A sigh escaped him.
“And then?”
“What happened immediately afterwards will probably never be known,” he said, in a hard, hoarse voice. “I only know that somewhere about nine o’clock that same evening Carrera’s despatch-box in his room at the Continental was opened with its proper key, and Chilian Government securities which he had only that day redeemed from the bank and intended to carry back to Valparaiso as well as a lot of negotiable bonds were all abstracted, together with a large sum in French bank-notes – the value altogether being about eighty thousand pounds. At midnight the poor fellow lay in the same room with a bullet in his brain. He realised how he had been tricked; how the key had been taken from his jacket pocket while he had taken the fair Lucie out upon the lake, and in a fit of chagrin and despair he took his revolver and ended his life.”
“He committed suicide!” I gasped. “Didn’t you see him after he went out upon the lake; didn’t you warn him?”
“No. I meant to. But, alas! I was too late. I waited an hour at the Casino; then returned to Paris; and imagine my horror when I discovered next morning what had happened.”
“What did you do?”
“I went at once to the Prefecture of Police and gave information. With three detectives I went down to Enghien, but we found the Villa du Lac uninhabited. The mysterious Mr Miller and his pretty daughter had already flown. That was three years ago, and from that afternoon until half an hour ago I have never set eyes upon the dark-eyed girl who so cleverly assisted her father in his ingenious schemes.”
“But are you sure she is the same?” I asked. “You admit that she has changed.”
“She has. She’s grown more beautiful, but she is the same, my dear fellow – the same. Is it any wonder that I hate her?”
Chapter Six
The Truth about the Stranger
I sat staring at my friend, unable to utter a word.
In the past twenty-four hours, through no fault or seeking of my own, I had suddenly been plunged into a maze of mystery, and there had been revealed to me a grave personal peril of which I had been in utter ignorance.
What the sweet, open-faced girl had divulged to me had caused me much amazement, yet this extraordinary story of Sammy’s was utterly dumbfounding. I could not bring myself to believe that the girl who had so simply confessed to me her distress had wilfully assisted her father in robbing young Carrera, thereby causing him to take his life. To me it was utterly incredible.
Yet the fact that she had any connection with the mysterious Italian now lying dead above caused me to ponder. She knew the secret of that incident in quiet old Pisa. Yes. She was a mystery.
Had she told me the actual truth? That was the question which greatly puzzled me.
Through the following day and the next when, with Sammy, I followed the Italian to his lonely grave at Highgate, I recalled every incident of that strange sequence of circumstances, and longed again to see and question her.
Sammy, with that easy irresponsibility which was one of his chief characteristics, declared that Lucie, for obvious reasons, would not show herself again. But, on the other hand, I argued that if his allegation that she had come to Granville Gardens in order to meet me were correct, then she would return. She had, I pointed out, no suspicion that he was there and had recognised her. Therefore there was nothing to prevent her seeking me.
The whole circumstances were both romantic and puzzling.
The very man who she had alleged had plotted with the woman Hardwick against me had entrusted his most valuable possessions to me. Why? Had the small kindness I had shown him turned his heart towards me? Certainly he had paid me for my services – the sum of two hundred pounds.
Once or twice I wondered how I stood legally. The man was dead, yet I had a faint suspicion that I had no legal right whatsoever to administer his estate. There might be a will somewhere, and if legatees came forward I might one day find myself in a very queer and awkward position.
But I told Sammy nothing of this. I deemed it best to preserve silence both as regards the money and the curious packet that I was to keep three years.
A week went by. The man who had given his name as Massari had been interred, the expenses paid, and life at Mrs Gilbert’s had resumed its normal quiet. Indeed, not until three days after the funeral were the other guests let into the tragic secret of the stranger’s sudden death. Then for a day or two the whole place was agog and various theories formed. In London a foreigner is always viewed with a certain amount of suspicion, perhaps on account of our insular proclivities, perhaps because the majority of Londoners know no other language beyond a smattering of elementary French.
Often and often, when alone in our little den at the back of the house, Sammy and I discussed the curious affair, but neither of us was able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion.
To be in order, I called in a solicitor named Price whom I knew, and a week after Massari’s death we opened his portmanteaux together and examined the contents.
They presented several surprises. Sammy was, of course, with us, taking an eager interest in the affair and helping to examine the documents which we found. He was of little use, however, for they were mostly in Italian, a language of which both my companions were almost entirely ignorant.
The first fact I established was that the name of the deceased was not Massari but Giovanni Nardini. This surprised us all, for Nardini was very well-known in Italy, having held the portfolio of Justice in the Ministry overthrown only a week before, and having made himself conspicuous in his perpetual war with the Socialist party in the Chamber. Only two days ago I had read telegrams from Rome in the morning papers saying that there were serious charges against the Minister of appropriating the public funds while in office, and that the Government were considering what steps they should take for his prosecution.
I had never connected the notorious Minister of Justice Nardini with the stranger who had died so suddenly. Yet had not Lucie Miller told me that he was a person well-known in Italy?
“He was a thief who absconded, that’s very evident,” Sammy remarked dryly. “We shall perhaps find something interesting presently.”
The lawyer Price and myself were seated at the table in the room where the ex-Minister had died, and we both carefully examined paper after paper, I reading aloud a rough translation.
Many of the documents were, I recognised, of extreme importance to the Government. Some were the official records of sentences pronounced by the Tribunal upon various persons and had evidently been extracted from the archives of the Ministry.
“I wonder what he intended to do with these?” Price remarked presently. “Perhaps his idea was to sell them to the persons who had been condemned to enable them to destroy the record.”
“Or perhaps he held them for the purposes of levying blackmail?” Sammy suggested. “No man, if he were leading an honest life, would like to have his police record hawked about.”
“But here,” I said, holding up a paper, “here are the confidential notes of the President of the Court of Assizes at Milan concerning two very important cases, showing the lines on which the prosecution was to be conducted. These would surely be of the utmost value to the prisoners, for upon them they could form a complete defence. The prosecution is a political one, and the weak points in the evidence are indicated and commented upon. Yes,” I added, “all these official documents have been carried off because they could easily be turned into money. We shall be compelled to restore them to the Italian Government.”
“His Excellency, when he fled from Rome, took care to carry away all he could that was of value,” remarked the solicitor. “Fate, however, very quickly overtook him before he had time to negotiate any of the documents.”
The letters occupied us some considerable time. They were in two packets secured by broad elastic bands, and all were, without exception, letters from poor unfortunate victims who were in his clutches financially and who begged for further time in which to pay. Some of them, written in illiterate calligraphy, were heartrending appeals for wife, family, honour – even life. They were the collection of a hard-hearted man whose delight it was to crush and oppress rich and poor alike. The letters showed that. More than one was full of bitter reproach and withering sarcasm, revealing plainly that what the English girl had said concerning him was the actual truth.
And yet in my short acquaintance with him prior to his decease I had never dreamed that his character was as such.
Nevertheless at that moment, as I afterwards discovered, the Italian press was full of bitter abuse of the man who for the past four years or so had been one of the most popular in Italy. But he had been found out, and in ignorance of his death they were now hounding him down and appealing to the Government to arrest and prosecute him.
We had nearly completed our investigation, Price taking a careful inventory of the contents of the portmanteaux, when I discovered an envelope in which was a large yellow printed form filled in with a quantity of microscopic writing.
Within was a folded sheet of grey notepaper – a letter in Italian which I read eagerly, holding my breath, for what was contained there staggered me.
My companions watched my change of countenance in wonder. And well, indeed, they might, for it was the appeal of a desperate woman, a letter that revealed to me an amazing truth – a letter signed “Lucie.”
And when I had finished reading it, I sat there, staring as the written lines danced before my eyes, amazed, unable to utter a single word in response to their questions.
Chapter Seven
Describes some Confidential Documents
I had no right to divulge the girl’s secret to my two companions. I recognised this in an instant.
She had told me in confidence, and here was plain proof of what she had explained.
“What is it?” asked Price. “Something that surprises you?”
“Well, yes,” I answered as carelessly as I could. “It’s a letter from a woman.”
“From Lucie Miller!” cried Sammy, whose sharp eyes had caught the signature. “What does she say? Tell us,” he asked eagerly.
“No,” I said firmly. “Recollect that whatever or whoever this man is, he is dead. Therefore let his private affairs rest. It is surely no concern of ours.”
“No – of yours, perhaps,” my friend laughed. “Remember what I told you about her.”
“I recollect every word.”
“And yet you are all the time anxious to meet her again, Godfrey! Do you know, I really believe the girl has captivated you – like she has so many others.”
“You don’t take me for a fool – do you?” I snapped, rather annoyed. “She was in distress and I am wondering if she has yet extricated herself.”
Price made inquiry as to whom we were discussing, but in a few quick sentences I satisfied his curiosity.
“I should be very sorry if she ever comes here again,” declared Sammy. “I have no wish to meet her. The memory of my poor friend Carrera is far too painful.”
“You believe, then, that his death was due to her – that she induced him to leave his jacket upon the lawn?”
“I make no direct charge, my dear fellow. I only say that she’s daughter of one of the most ingenious ‘crooks’ in Europe – a member, if not the actual leader, of one of the cleverest of the international gangs. They are possessed of ample means, and the police are no match for their ingenuity.”
“You have your opinion, my dear old chap; I have mine,” I said, glancing round the room and recollecting vividly how she had stood there and looked upon the white drawn face of the man who had refused to extricate her from her deadly peril.
He took up the yellow paper, glanced it over, and put it down again without being able to make anything out of it.
I said I would translate it later, and placed it aside, together with the strange letter of appeal.
Neither of my companions was very well satisfied, I could see. They wished to know what the mysterious Lucie had written, while I, on my part, was equally determined not to tell them. It was surely not fair to her to divulge what had been meant for Nardini’s eye alone; therefore, I intended to keep possession of the letter, and to hand it to her to destroy, should we ever meet again.
Now that I recall those hours following the stranger’s decease and the English girl’s mysterious visit I cannot even now explain why I so suddenly commenced to take an interest in her. She was beautiful, it was true, but man-of-the-world that I was, and a constant wanderer across the face of Europe, I knew dozens of women quite as graceful, if not even more beautiful. Besides, there was the dark stigma upon her which Sammy had alleged, and which, by what I had now discovered, seemed fully borne out.
No. I think the mystery of the affair was responsible for my undue interest in her. Sammy, of course, put it down to her personal attractions, but he was decidedly and distinctly in error. She had told me of her perilous position, and of the dead man’s refusal to assist her. Therefore it was but natural that I was curious to know how she fared.
Again, was she not in some mysterious way acquainted with a secret of my own life? Perhaps it was also that fact which caused me a longing to know the real truth concerning her.
There was certainly nothing of the adventuress about her. She was quiet, refined, graceful, neatly dressed, and spoke with easy, well-bred accents that were essentially those of a lady.
I do not think my worst enemy has ever declared me to be impressionable where women were concerned, for truth to tell, an incident that had occurred four years before had soured my life, and caused my resolution to ever remain a bachelor.
Ah! It was all over – the old story of the mad passion of a man for one who proved – well, unworthy. Ah! how I had adored my Ella; how I worshipped the very ground upon which she trod; how I would have conquered the very world for her sake. Yes. I saw her now, so young in her white muslin dress with her gold-brown hair falling upon her shoulders, her laughing blue eyes, and the red rose in her breast as we walked that June afternoon along those white English cliffs with the blue Channel at our feet. That never-to-be-forgotten afternoon we pledged our love, our hot lips met in their first fierce caress, our hearts beat in unison. She was my all in all. For months we lived in a world that was entirely our own – a bright rosy world of high ideals and ineffable sweetness, for we loved, ay we loved in a manner, I believe, that man and maiden never loved before. Even the remembrance of it now was sweet and yet – ah! so intensely bitter.
But why need I trouble you with that incident of long ago? Suffice it to say that my little Ella preferred money to a man’s love, and she became engaged to a stout, grey-haired fellow old enough to be her father. Six months later she sickened, and then I heard that she was dead. Ah! the blow was to me terrible! I became from that day a changed man.
Since my little Ella preferred money to my love, I had again been wandering hither and thither, a careless, aimless man, just as I had wandered before meeting her. If I had had a profession it would have been different, but my father committed the unpardonable folly of leaving me comfortably off, therefore I simply developed into an idler, preferring life at the gay continental resorts – now in Monte Carlo, now in Paris, now in Rome, or elsewhere, just as my inclinations led me – to the dull humdrum existence of chambers in London. Ella – Ella! I thought of none save of my sweet dead love, now lost to me for ever.
Therefore, when Sammy hinted that I had become bewitched by Lucie Miller I firmly and frankly denied such assertion. Four years is a breach in a man’s life, but even four years had not caused me to forget my first and only true passion – the passion that had ended so tragically. Sometimes life does not count by years. Some suffer a lifetime in a day, and so grow old between the rising and the setting of the sun.