what happened in the night.
whether the recognition had been mutual i was unable to decide.
if it had the newcomer made no sign, but extended his hand and greeted me, while i, striving to remain unconcerned, returned his welcome.
“your father tells me he’s driving over to swanage at half-past ten, miss lucie. are you coming with us?” he asked, as he lounged with his hands deep in his jacket pockets, and an after-breakfast cigarette between his lips.
“i don’t think so,” was her reply. “i’m lunching with the strong girls.”
“oh, do come,” urged the dark-faced man. “you’d be back before one. you promised me yesterday that you’d drive me somewhere.”
“so i will—to-morrow, perhaps.”
i watched the man’s thin shaven face, and looked into his grey eyes in silence. his was a countenance striking on account of its clear-cut features, its mobile mouth, its high intellectual forehead, and its protruding jaws—an eminently clever, good-humoured face, and yet the expression in the eyes was, somehow, out of keeping with the rest of the countenance.
he laughed lightly, making some chaffing remarks, whereat the slight flush that arose in lucie’s cheeks told me that she was not altogether averse to his evident admiration. he was a pleasant fellow—but, nevertheless, a mystery.
his appearance there had, for two reasons, startled me. the first was because i had no idea that miller had a male visitor, and the second was because i recognised him as a person whom i had long desired to rediscover.
the last occasion i had seen him he had called himself lieutenant shacklock, r.n. it was in very different circumstances. he had worn a moustache and beard, and affected a gold-rimmed monocle. his personal appearance as he stood there laughing with lucie was, however, very different, yet those cold grey, close-set eyes were the same. they wore an expression that could never be altered or disguised.
we spoke together once or twice, and i began to feel convinced that he was unaware of our previous meeting.
“yes,” he remarked to me. “beautiful old place this. i wonder my friend miller doesn’t live here more. if i were in his place i’m sure i’d prefer it to wandering about the continent.”
“you’ve been here before, i suppose?”
“many times. miller, when he’s home, generally invites me,” and then he turned to lucie, by whom he was undoubtedly attracted. little wonder, indeed, when one recognised how handsome she was.
i again stood silent, my eyes turned upon the spruce man’s face—the face that brought back to my mind a curious and mysterious incident in my wandering life abroad.
when one travels on the continent as i had travelled, spending years of aimless wandering and lazy idling in the halls and smoking-rooms of hotels of the first order, making passing acquaintances of men and women of all grades and all nations, listening to music in illuminated gardens, and sometimes wandering with some fair table-d’h?te acquaintance beneath the stars, one meets with some queer adventures. i had met with a good many. one of them i now found myself recalling.
three winters before i found myself, after the brilliant season at monte carlo, at a little sea-side resort called nervi, which, as travellers know, is a few miles beyond genoa, on the way to rome. you have possibly looked out of the train and there obtained a glimpse of the blue mediterranean beating upon its brown rocks; you have admired the splendid white villas of the genoese merchants, and you have, probably, noticed behind the little railway station a great hotel garden, with green lawns and a splendid avenue of spreading palms.
in that garden one april night after dinner i was strolling and smoking with two men, who were friends. we had met casually in the hotel a few days before; a pleasant word or two, cocktails in company, a proffered cigar, and we at once became acquaintances, as is the way of cosmopolitans. the elder was named blenkap, a man of sixty, a wealthy ironmaster from pittsburg; while shacklock, the other, was much younger, smart, and had just retired from the navy.
that night we wandered through the gardens to the sea, which lay like glass beneath the light of the white italian moon, with the waves sighing softly upon the shingle. but blenkap, after half an hour, complained of being rather unwell, and while the lieutenant went into the town to purchase some cigarettes i accompanied his friend back to the hotel.
it was then about ten o’clock, and refusing to allow me to call a doctor, the american went to his room. at two o’clock in the morning i was awakened by the night-porter, who said that number ninety-seven had asked him to call me. hastily i dressed, and, on going along the corridor, found blenkap in bed in a state of collapse.
“i’m very ill; the pains in my head are terrible,” he whispered to me. “will you call a doctor—somebody who speaks english, if possible?”
his white face alarmed me, and i left him and went along to the lieutenant’s room at the other end of the corridor. to my knock there was, however, no response, but on turning the handle and opening the door, i found the room in darkness and empty. he had not returned. therefore i hurried out, and in half an hour returned with an italian doctor who spoke a little english.
on entering the room i noticed that the doctor sniffed the air mysteriously as he crossed to the patient, who i now saw was unconscious. he examined him, asked me a few brief questions, and then fixing his eyes upon me, exclaimed in italian:—
“this is a rather curious affair, signore.”
“why?” i inquired. “the gentleman was taken this evening while we were walking together. he complained of bad pains in his head and stomach.”
“yes, but who gave him the anaesthetic?” asked the doctor.
“anaesthetic!” i exclaimed. “why nobody, as far as i know.”
“well, chloroform has been given him, and quite recently. he struggled against it—don’t you see?” and he indicated the american’s clenched hands and the disordered bed. “how long were you absent?”
“about half an hour.”
“then some one must have come here while you were away,” the doctor declared, stroking his dark beard very thoughtfully. at first i was alarmed lest the unfortunate american might die, but the doctor, after due examination, assured me that there was really no danger. for half an hour we sat and waited, until at length the man to whom the anaesthetic had been so mysteriously administered regained consciousness. it was a slow recovery, but when at length his dull eyes fell upon me he beckoned me to him and with excited gestures pointed to a leather-covered box beneath a table opposite. i pulled it out and tried the lock. it was still secure, and he nodded in satisfaction. presently the doctor left, and i returned to bed, but imagine my blank amazement next morning when, just as i was sipping my coffee in my room, blenkap dashed in, crying:—
“i’ve been robbed! that fellow, shacklock, did it! he must have crept into my room while you were away, rendered me senseless, took the key from the gold chain i always wear around my neck, opened the box, extracted the whole of the money and jewellery, relocked the box, and then had the audacity to replace the chain around my neck!”
“but he is your friend?” i exclaimed, with astonishment.
“i only met him a fortnight ago at the grand at san remo,” he answered. “he was there with a friend of his—probably a thief also. but he came on here alone with me. the fellow has taken over eighty thousand dollars!”
i hurried with him to the questore, or chief of police, and telegrams were quickly despatched hither and thither, but the thief had evidently got back to genoa by the train at three o’clock in the morning, and embarked at once upon some ship for a mediterranean port—naples, marseilles or algiers. at any rate, though i remained a month in nervi, we never heard further either of the easy-going naval man, or of the eighty thousand dollars in american notes and negotiable securities. without doubt it was intended by the thief, or thieves, to throw the first suspicion upon myself, but fortunately the night-porter stated most positively that he had seen the lieutenant coming from his friend, blenkap’s room, ten minutes before my return with the doctor. the man had left the main door of the hotel ajar in order to admit us, and it was evident that by that means the thief got away unnoticed.
the robbery had been an ingenious and audacious one, and showed the clever cunning of a master-hand.
as you have, no doubt, already guessed, the man who so cleverly got hold of blenkap’s money, and who had escaped so swiftly, i now recognised as the affable lieutenant shacklock, the intimate friend and guest of james harding miller.
was not his presence in that house sufficient to convince me that what had been suspected of miller was more than a mere surmise? it had been declared that lucie’s father, though a county gentleman, was also head of the most daring association of criminals in europe. it seemed to me that gordon-wright, alias shacklock, was one of his ingenious lieutenants whom he was entertaining in his cosy retreat—planning some new scheme perhaps—and who was, at the same time, an ardent admirer of the beautiful girl whose unhappiness and deadly peril was so great a mystery.
