The Red Room

“No. There is a telegram here for madame. It arrived half an hour after their departure. They would leave no word with the hall-porter regarding the forwarding of letters.”

“I am her husband,” I said, “and that telegram is evidently mine, which has been delayed in transmission, as messages so often are in this country. As her husband, I have a right to open it, I suppose.”

“I regret, sir, that I cannot allow that,” said the man. “You have given me no proof that you are madame’s husband.”

“But I am!” I cried. “This lady here is my wife’s sister, and will tell you.”

“Yes,” declared the girl, “this is Harry, my brother-in-law. The other man, whoever he may be, is an impostor.”

The short, bald-headed Italian in his long frock-coat, grew puzzled. He was faced by a problem. Therefore, after some further declarations on my part, he handed me the message, and I found, as I had expected, it was my own, which, unfortunately, had never reached her to reassure her.

Of course, I was not certain that Mabel’s companion was actually Kirk. Indeed, as I reflected, I grew to doubt whether she would accept any word he told her as the truth. Yet whatever the story related about myself to her it must be a strange and dramatic one, that it should induce her to travel across Europe in company with a stranger.

I had never had the slightest reason to doubt Mabel’s fidelity. She had always been a good, honest and true wife to me, and our strong affection was mutual. Indeed, few men and women led more blissful, even lives than we had done. Thoroughly understanding each other’s temperaments, we were content in each other’s affection.

No, even though this man might tell me this astounding story, I refused to give it credence. The grey-moustached stranger, whoever he might be, was a scoundrel bent upon entrapping my wife, and had done so by relating some fictitious story about myself.

This theory I expounded to her young sister Gwen as we sat at our coffee half an hour later. We had resolved to rest until eleven, when an express left for Rome. I intended to follow her and rescue her from the hands of those who were most certainly conspirators.

More mystified than ever, we therefore travelled south to the Eternal City, arriving there in the early hours of the next morning, and going to the Grand Hotel, which was full to overflowing, the Roman season having already commenced.

To find my beloved wife was now my sole aim. I thought naught of the startling mystery of Sussex Place, or of the strange identity of the false Professor. I had abandoned the inquiry in order to recover from peril the woman I loved so dearly.

The young girl, my companion, was beside herself with fear, dreading what had occurred; while I myself became more and more puzzled as to the motive for inveigling Mabel abroad. She had not the slightest connection with the secret tragedy; she was, indeed, in ignorance of it all. For what reason, therefore, was she being misled, and why, oh, why, did she allow this perfect stranger to pose as myself?

I hardly slept at all that night, having searched all the published visitors’ lists in vain, and as early as seven o’clock next morning I started upon a tour of the hotels to make personal inquiry. At the Russia, the Modern, the Continental, the Milan, and other well-known houses of that class I conned the names of the visitors for my own, but though I was occupied the whole day upon the task, snatching a hasty luncheon at a little trattoria I knew just behind the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, all was, alas! in vain.

Part of the time Mabel’s sister was with me, until she grew tired, and returned alone to the hotel in a cab.

Earlier in the day I had telegraphed to Pelham to inquire whether Mabel had sent me any message at home, but the reply came that neither telegram nor letter had been received.

Though there seemed no connection whatever between the tragedy in Sussex Place and my wife’s flight, yet I could not help suspecting that there was, and that my apparent abandonment was due to the subtle, satanic influence of my mysterious neighbour. I was now all the more anxious to condemn him to the police. The remains of the poor Professor had been cremated in his own furnace, and by the blackguardly hands of the assassin.

Yet, before I could raise the finger of denunciation, I had to discover the fellow’s whereabouts, and this seemed a task impossible to accomplish. I had kept my eye upon the Times daily in the course of my quick journeys during that most eventful week, but no advertisement had appeared.

Next day, and the next, I spent alternately searching the hotels and idling in the Corso, on the Pincian, among the tourists in the Forum, or in the broad Piazza Colonna, the hub of Roman life. Among the hosts of foreigners who walked and drove in the Corso at the hour of the passeggiata, my eyes, and those of my bright little companion, were ever eager to find my dear wife’s handsome face.

But we saw her not. She and the man posing as myself had entirely and completely disappeared.

I sought counsel of the Questore, or chief of police, who, on hearing that I was in search of my wife, ordered the register of foreigners in Rome to be searched. But two days later he informed me with regret that the name of Holford did not appear.

In face of that my only conclusion was that, after leaving Florence, they had suddenly changed the course of their flight.

Their flight! Why had Mabel fled from me, after speeding so swiftly to meet me? Ay, that was the crucial question.

Late one afternoon I was standing upon the Pincian, leaning upon the balustrade of that popular promenade of the Romans, and watching the crowd of winter idlers who, in carriage and afoot, were taking the fresh, bright air. I had been there every day, hoping against hope either to recognise Mabel or the man Kirk among the crowd of wealthy cosmopolitans who thronged the hillside.

Before me moved the slow procession of all sorts and conditions of carriages, from the gaudily-coloured, smart motor-car of the young Italian elegant to the funereal carozza of the seedy marchesa, or the humble vettura of the tweed-skirted “Cookite.” Behind showed the soft grey rose of the glorious afterglow with the red roofs, tall towers and domes of the Eternal City lying deep below. Against the sky stood the tall cypresses – high, gloomy, sombre – and over all spread that light film of mist that rises from old Tiber when the dusk is gathering.

The scene was, perhaps, one of the most picturesque in all Italy, even surpassing that from the Piazza Michelangelo in Firenze, but to me, hipped and bewildered as I was, the chatter in a dozen tongues about me was irritating; and I turned my back upon the crowd, leaning my elbows upon the stone parapet, and gazing over the gay, light-hearted capital whence at that moment came up the jangling of bells started by the great bell at St. Peter’s and echoing from every church tower, the solemn call to evening prayer that is, alas! ever unheeded. In modern Italy only the peasant is pious; in the alto mondo religion is unfashionable.

Perhaps you have driven in the Corso, that narrow and most disappointing of thoroughfares, gossiped in the English tea-shop at five o’clock, taken your vermouth and bitters in the Aregno, and climbed the Pincian to see the sunset. If you have, then you know that life, you recognise amid that crowd faces of both sexes that you have seen at Aix, at Vichy, at Carlsbad, at Ostend, or in the rooms at Monte Carlo, many of them vicious, sin-hardened faces, careless, indolent, blasé; few, alas! with the freshness of youth or the open look indicated by pure-mindedness.

On the Pincian you have the light-hearted thoughtless world which exists only to be amused, the world which laughs at grim poverty because it obtains its wherewithal from the labours of those poor, underpaid and sweated millions in other countries who must work in order that these few favoured ones may indulge in their extravagances.

Sick to death, disappointed, worn out by a continual vigilance and with a deep anxiety gnawing ever at my heart-strings, I had turned from the scene, and was gazing across into the rose-tinted mists, when of a sudden I heard a voice at my elbow, exclaiming in broken English:

“Why, surely it’s the Signor Holford!”

I turned quickly, and to my amazement found myself confronted by the thin, sinister face of the dead Professor’s servant, Antonio Merli.

Chapter Sixteen

Antonio Speaks Plainly

“You, Antonio!” I gasped, staring at the fellow who, dressed in a dark grey suit and soft black felt hat, presented an appearance of ultra-respectability.

“Yes, signore, I am very surprised to find you here – in Rome,” he replied.

“Come,” I said abruptly, “tell me what has occurred. Why did you leave London so hurriedly?”

“I had some family affairs to attend to,” he answered. “I had to go to my home at Lucca to arrange for the future of my two nephews whose father is just dead. Pietro joined me there.”

“And you were joined also by Mr Kirk?” I said.

“Ah, no, signore!” protested the thin-faced Italian with an emphatic gesture. “I have not seen him since I left London.”

“Are you quite certain of that, Antonio?” I asked slowly, in disbelief, as I looked straight into his face.

“Quite. I know that he came abroad, but have no idea of his present whereabouts.”

“Now tell me, Antonio,” I urged, “who and what is Mr Kirk?”

The Italian shrugged his shoulders, answering:

“Ah, signore, you had better not ask. He is a mystery to me – as to you, and as he was to my poor master.”

“He killed your master – eh?” I suggested. “Now tell me the truth – once and for all.”

“I do not know,” was his quick reply, with a strange flash in his dark eyes. “If he did, then I have no knowledge of it. I slept on the top floor, and heard nothing.”

“Who was the man who went to Edinburgh on the night of the tragedy?”

“Ah! Dio mio! Do not reopen all that puzzle!” he protested. “I am just as mystified as you yourself, signore.”

I looked straight in the man’s face, wondering if he were speaking the truth. His hard, deep-lined countenance was difficult to read. The Italian is such a born diplomatist that his face seldom betrays his thoughts. He can smile upon you sweetly, even though behind his back he grips a dagger ready to strike you to the heart. And so old Antonio’s face was sphinx-like, as all his race.

“You saw Leonard Langton at Calais,” I remarked.