The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias

Hour after hour dragged slowly by. At Genoa, long after the sun had risen, I got out for a cup of coffee in that ugly and rather dirty buffet which travellers in Italy know so well. Then re-entering, we started off up the deep valleys and across the broad wine-lands of Asti towards Turin.

As we approached the capital of Piedmont my anxiety increased. To delay the Indian mail for ten minutes was surely a sufficient courtesy, and I knew that after that lapse of time my friend Nicholls dared not assume further responsibility. The overland mail once a week between Brindisi and Charing Cross is ever on time; a contract that must be kept whatever the cost; hence, as I frequently glanced at my watch, I grew anxious as to my success in catching it.

If I did I should arrive at Calais harbour in advance of the mysterious woman, and could on board the steamer single her out and demand the restoration of my property.

We halted at Novi, and the time lost in taking water seemed an eternity. At Alexandria we were ten minutes late – ten minutes! Think what that meant to me.

At Asti there was some difficulty about an old contadina’s box; and when the train started at last for Turin we were nearly fourteen minutes behind time. I threw myself back with a sigh, feeling that all hope had vanished. We could never make up time on that short run; and the English mail, after waiting for me, would leave ten minutes or so before my arrival. Could any situation be more tantalising?

At last, however, we ran slowly into the great arched terminus of Turin; and as we did so I hung half my body from the carriage window, and was delighted to see the train of long, brown sleeping-cars still standing in the station.

My heart gave a bound. On the platform my friend Nicholls was awaiting me, and assisted me hurriedly to descend.

“Just in time, Mr Kennedy,” he said. “Another minute and I should have been compelled to let her go. Anything serious in London?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Very serious. I’ll write to you all about it. But I don’t know how to thank you sufficiently.”

“Oh, never mind about that,” he laughed. “I’ve got your berth for you. Come along;” and, hurrying me over to the next platform, he put me into one of the cars, wishing me bon voyage, waved his hand, and we moved out towards Calais – the fastest express across Europe.

Upon the result of that hard race my whole future and happiness depended. I was not, of course, aware of it at the time. I was merely consumed by curiosity regarding the strange vellum record, and was eager to obtain the knowledge that its writer had so successfully concealed – barring it with certain death to those who sought the truth.

Could I but have looked into the future, could I have realised what it all meant to me, I should never have dared to embark upon that chase; but rather should I have been pleased that this unknown woman of the sable habiliments had taken into her hands that which must sooner or later encompass her death.

But we are creatures of impulse, all of us. I found the circumstances full of romance and interest; and, beyond, I saw the woman herself as great a mystery as that written upon those envenomed pages.

My keen anxiety through those long hours while we sped through the Alps and by way of Aix, Mâcon, and Dijon to Paris need not be told. The train by which the woman I was following had travelled was before us all the way; but her delay would, I discovered, be in Paris; for while she was compelled to cross the city by cab, and wait at the Gare du Nord five hours, we travelled around the Ceinture railway, and left for Calais with only twenty minutes’ wait at the French capital.

Most of my fellow-travellers were Anglo-Indians, officers and their wives home on leave, together with a few homeward-bound travellers from the Far East, everyone eager to get aboard the Dover boat and to sight the white cliffs of Old England once again after perhaps many years of exile. If you have travelled by the overland mail, you know well the excitement that commences as one nears Calais; for once beneath the British flag of the Channel steamer, one is home again. Ah! that word home – how much it conveyed to me! – how much to you, if you have travelled in far-off lands!

We swung through Boulogne around that terrible curve that generally throws over the plates and dishes of the wagon restaurant, and at last slackened down through Calais-Ville, and slowly proceeded to the harbour where the special boat awaited us, the train having done the long run from Brindisi four minutes under the scheduled time even though Nicholls had kept it behind for nearly a quarter of an hour.

It was now eleven o’clock in the morning, and until four o’clock in the afternoon I remained in that most dismal of all hotels, the “Terminus,” at Calais, awaiting the arrival of the ordinary express from Paris. It came at last, crowded with summer tourists from Switzerland and elsewhere, business men, and that quaint, mixed set of travellers that continually pass to and fro across the Channel.

In order to discover the woman, however, I took up a position near the gangway that gave access to the steamer, and scrutinised each passenger with all the eagerness of a born detective. One after the other they passed in array, each carrying the hand-luggage, while the big, rattling cranes were at work faking aboard baggage and mails.

The stream grew thinner, until the last passenger had passed on board, and yet she did not come. My haste had been in vain. She had probably broken her journey in Paris. And yet somehow I felt that she had some motive in carrying The Closed Book to London without delay.

French porters with their arm-badges and peaked caps rushed to and fro. There was shouting in two languages, not counting the third – or bad language. They were preparing to cast off, and I was undecided whether to remain in Calais until two o’clock next morning for the arrival of the night train or to go aboard and make further search.

But just as the gangway was about to be withdrawn I distinguished among the bustling groups of passengers a face that was familiar to me, and my decision was made immediately. I rushed headlong on board, and my hopes revived as I made my way quickly across the deck.

Chapter Eleven

The Old Lady from Paris

The man with whom I shook hands heartily was about thirty-five, tall, spruce, clean-shaven, and merry-faced, wearing a black overcoat and peaked cap that gave him the appearance of a naval officer. Cross-channel passengers know Henry Hammond well, for he is one of the most popular officials in his Majesty’s customs, always courteous, always lenient to the poor foreign immigrant, but always stern wherever the traveller seeks to conceal contraband goods or that thing forbidden, the pet dog; conscientious in his duty in examining the baggage of incoming passengers, and always a gentleman – different, indeed, from the prying douaniers of our neighbours.

With his assistant it was his duty, turn by turn, to cross from Dover by the midday service, and on the return of the steamer from Calais – the vessel on which we were now aboard – to examine all the light baggage and affix a kind of perforated stamp as certificate of examination.

As a constant traveller I had had many a pleasant chat with him during trips across. In the wildest winter tempest in Dover Straits he remained unruffled, merely turning up the collar of his overcoat, and remarking that the weather was not so bad as it might be. But nearly all of you have had your baggage examined on the boat on your return from the Continent; therefore, no doubt, you know Mr Hammond, and have answered his question whether you have “anything to declare.”

“Why, Mr Kennedy,” he cried, as he took my hand, “this is a surprise! I saw in the paper the other day an announcement that you were returning to live in England, but did not expect you across just yet. Look at them,” he added, casting his glance around. “Big crowd this afternoon: Cook’s and Gaze’s weekly returns from Switzerland.”

“Yes,” I laughed. “You’ll be busy all the way over, I suppose.”

“No, I’ll be done in three-quarters of an hour or so; then we’ll have a chat. My assistant is already getting on with hand-baggage forward.” By this time we had cast off, and were creeping slowly down the harbour.

“Well, Hammond,” I said confidentially, “I’m in a dilemma;” and taking him aside into one of the unoccupied deck-cabins I briefly explained the circumstances of The Closed Book, and described its outward appearance and binding.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, deeply interested; “it almost beats your own romances, Mr Kennedy. I’ve just been reading your last. Neither my wife nor I could put it down till we’d finished.”

“You see, the woman ought to be on board this boat; but I’ve not yet seen her. I’m just going in search of her. But if you should come across any one answering the description I’ve given, you might tell me at once.”

“Of course. You want to get this extraordinary book back again?”

“Certainly. It is a valuable piece of property, apart from the secret it contains and the mystery surrounding it;” and as I uttered those words the slow roll of the vessel showed that we were already out in the somewhat choppy sea, and warned my friend that it was time to commence his duty.

So we parted, and I started a tour around the boat, commencing tactfully at the stern, and passing in review each of the passengers. The work was by no means easy, for women when they lounge in deck-chairs assume thick wrappings and thick veils to protect their faces when the Channel is rough and the wind strong. One always feels the breeze cold after hours in a stuffy sleeping-car, and, therefore, women are prone to suffer the horrors of the ladies’ cabin rather than risk catching cold.

For nearly an hour I made frantic search hither and thither throughout the whole ship, in all three classes. I gazed at the piles of heavy baggage, wondering whether my treasure were concealed there, registered through to London perhaps, in which case it might go forward without my mysterious visitor. The only place forbidden to me was, of course, the ladies’ cabin, presided over by a stern stewardess; and if the woman of whom I was in pursuit was on board, she had undoubtedly concealed herself there.

She certainly had not embarked by the gangway I had watched; but there was a second gangway to the fore-part of the ship by which baggage was carried, and she might have slipped across there unnoticed, as people sometimes do.

Already Shakespeare’s Cliff was showing through the evening haze, as the vessel steadily laboured in the rough sea. The passengers were mostly lying in deck-chairs hors de combat, and no one ventured to promenade upon the unsteady deck. I had taken up a sheltered position near the door of the ladies’ cabin, determined to remain there until every passenger should have left, although I was compelled to admit that my hope was a forlorn one, and that I should have to return again to Calais by the night boat and resume my vigil on the other side.

The woman must have broken her journey in Paris, and would undoubtedly come later; but on what day or by what service she would cross I was, of course, in ignorance. And as I sat shivering upon a stool in the rough wind, with the salt spray dashing ever and anon into my face, I felt that the probabilities of regaining my treasure were very few.

I had been the victim of an ingenious conspiracy. More could not be said.

Of a sudden, however, Hammond – his coat-collar up, and walking unsteadily because of the heavy rolling of the boat – approached me, saying:

“Well, I’ve just finished, Mr Kennedy. Every passenger today seems to have a double amount of hand-baggage; but we’ve been through it all. I’ve seen nothing of the young lady you describe; but I’ve seen something else – I’ve found your book.”

“Found it!” I cried excitedly. “Who has it? Tell me.”

“Well, a few minutes ago, in the second-class, I was examining the contents of a dilapidated leather bag belonging to a little, wizen-faced old woman, very shabbily dressed, when I found down at the bottom a flat brown-paper parcel, wrapped carefully, tied with string and sealed with big blotches of black wax. I’m always suspicious of sealed packets, for they may contain anything from cigars to anarchists’ bombs; therefore I ordered her to break the seals and open it. At first she refused; but on my explaining the penalty incurred, she reluctantly obeyed, and there, to my great satisfaction, I saw your old manuscript. I looked inside, and although I know little about such things, I recognised it from your description to be the stolen volume.”

“Did you make any remark?”

“None,” was Mr Hammond’s reply. “I wished to consult you first. I did not put the usual label on the bag, so that when she passes ashore it will be stopped and again opened. What do you intend doing?”

I was puzzled. It was satisfactory to know where The Closed Book actually was, but, on the other hand, it would be difficult to regain possession of it. As my friend Hammond pointed out, I could give notice to the harbour detective on arriving at Dover, and he would detain the woman. But I should be compelled to charge her with theft. This I could not do. I could, of course, declare the book to be stolen property; but matters were the more complicated because of the theft having been committed in Italy.

For some time we discussed the situation; then I accompanied him through the second-class, where, on a chair in the gangway leading past the engines, sat a queer, dried-up looking little woman of about sixty-five, wearing a rusty black bonnet and cloak – a woman I had noticed during my tour of inspection, but whom I had never suspected of being in actual possession of my treasure.

The book had evidently been delivered to her in Paris, and she was taking it to London – to whom?

That question I put to myself decided me, and when I was out of hearing I told Hammond that I intended to follow her before claiming it, and thus ascertain, if possible, the motive of the strange international plot which was apparently in progress.