The Mysterious Mr. Miller

The girl hurried on and was lost in the darkness, yet they were evidently awaiting her return.

My own position was a difficult one, for I feared that at any moment Gavazzi’s quick eyes might detect me and point me out to Miller who would recognise me. For fully a quarter of an hour the pair remained there, until at last the girl returned, bringing with her a young man about twenty-two, a low-born swaggering young fellow who wore his soft grey hat askew, and walked with his hands in his pockets, a man of distinctly criminal type who had probably never done an honest day’s work in his life. By the light of the street lamp I saw that he bore across his cheek an ugly cicatrice from an old knife-wound, and that upon his chin was a mole upon which the hair was allowed to grow. The latter was significant – it was the mark of that powerful secret society of criminals, the Camorra.

The girl, who was probably his inamorata, introduced them, whereupon he lifted his hat with his finger and thumb and swung it back upon his head with a twist – an action by which one Camorrist betrays his allegiance to the initiated.

For a few moments they conversed together, then the girl, wishing the trio buona sera, sped away, and passing me was again lost in the darkness, while the men, walking together slowly, came on in my direction. The doctor was conversing with the young man in low whispers, and it seemed to me that he was giving him certain instructions. But I could not, of course, approach sufficiently near to overhear what was said. Miller was listening, but said nothing, except when addressed by his friend.

Outside the massive Castel S. Angelo there is a cab-rank, and all three entered a closed cab.

That there was some dark conspiracy in progress I could not doubt. The presence of that young swaggerer – a man capable of committing any crime I could see – was distinctly suspicious. Besides they dare not be seen with him; therefore they took a closed cab, the only one upon the rank on that hot night.

They moved off across the bridge, and when they were a hundred yards away I got into one of the open cabs and told the driver to follow, for I was determined at all hazards to ascertain what cunning scheme was in progress.

Fortunately, on account of my linen suit being dirty, I had exchanged it for one of dark blue serge, therefore I was not so conspicuous in the darkness as was Miller. To my surprise they drove direct to the railway station, where they alighted and the doctor went to take tickets. Noticing this, I told my driver to jump down and overhear their destination, promising him five francs for the information.

In a moment he was gone, while I minded his horse.

Five minutes later he returned, saying: —

“The Signore has taken three second-class tickets to Tivoli.”

Tivoli! What, I wondered, was their object in going out to Tivoli at that hour?

I watched them pass the barrier on to the platform; then I myself took a ticket for the same destination, passed through, and entered an empty compartment of the waiting train. I saw, however, that while Miller and his friend were in a second-class carriage, the young man in the grey felt hat was in a third-class compartment. They were evidently taking precautions not to be seen in his company.

I was sorely tempted to slip across to the police office and ask the delegato to allow a detective to accompany me. Yet if I did this I should only be giving Miller into the hands of the police, and thus quite ruin all my chances of discovering the truth. No. If I wished to find out what was in progress I was, I saw, compelled to continue fearless and alone.

Something desperate was in progress, otherwise they would never have sought the services of that young Camorrist. Miller was far too gentlemanly a rascal to associate with common criminals.

The train was a slow omnibus one, and it was past midnight before we drew into the station of Tivoli. I held back, allowing all three to alight before me, and saw that, on the platform, they separated and passed out singly, as though unacquainted. A detective was idling at the barrier as is always the case in Italy, but their appearance did not attract him and they took the dark road leading towards the ancient town which in the daytime commands such beautiful views of Rome and the Campagna, the town that has always been a popular summer resort even since the Augustan age when Maecenas, Hadrian and the Emperor Augustus himself had their villas there, and gave their marvellous fêtes.

As I followed the trio, who still walked separately, I could hear the quiet of the night was broken by the thunder of the giant waterfalls, for me a fortunate circumstance, as the sounds of my footsteps were deadened. In Miller a strange transformation had been effected. He had been conspicuous in his suit of white, yet now he was in dark clothes. He had adopted the trick often practised by malefactors of wearing one suit over the other, so as to be able to enter a place wearing a light suit and gay-coloured scarf, and leave it three minutes afterwards dressed entirely differently. He had simply slipped off his white cotton suit while in the train and had either thrown it out of the window, or left it beneath the seat of the railway-carriage.

Railway searchers and platelayers, even in England, find complete suits of clothes more often than one would imagine.

From the station at Tivoli the road to the town, part of the ancient Valeria, runs down to the St. Angelo Gate. There it branches out in two ways, one entering the town across a high bridge, and the other continuing up the hill and out into the country.

The three men took this latter road, a winding tortuous one which led up past an ancient castle and away to the heights behind. There were no lights, but the night was not exactly dark, and I could distinctly see the white road before me and the figures moving forward. One had gone on rapidly in front, while the other two also walked separately as though strangers.

Suddenly I saw the figure nearest me leave the road and pass into a vineyard. Then a few minutes later, as I went on, I lost sight of the other two and at the same time found that we had reached a splendid old cinquecento villa, an enormous place the back of which abutted on to the road. Its great square windows were closely barred as they had been in those old turbulent days when every house had been a fortress, and from the great entrance gate with its crumbling stone lions on either side ran a long dark cypress avenue. The ponderous gate was covered with sheet iron so that I could see only the tops of the trees within.

This was, I supposed, the Villa Verde, the country-house of the man who had died unrecognised in the boarding-house in Shepherd’s Bush.

There was no door leading to the roadway save the great entrance gate. Through that Miller and his companions had certainly not passed, therefore I concluded that they had reached the house by a secret way through the vineyard.

Careful to remain always in the shadow, and moving with greatest caution, I retraced my steps, entered the vineyard at the point where I had seen one figure disappear, and after a few moments discovered a narrow path through the trailing richly laden vines which led through an open gate to a small side door in a wing of the great old building.

I tried it. The handle yielded. They had passed through there, without a doubt!

Should I enter there? Was I not perhaps risking my life in so doing? They were a desperate trio. I knew well my fate, if they discovered that I had learned their secret.

I held my breath. Then with sudden resolve, I slowly pushed the door open and peered eagerly within.

Next instant I drew back aghast.

What I saw there staggered me. I was not prepared for it.

I could distinctly hear my own heart beating within me.

Chapter Thirty One

The Secret of the Villa Verde

The unexpected sight that met my eyes within that narrow stone passage was truly horrifying.

An oil lamp shed a faint light at the farther end of the narrow tunnel-like place, and revealed the body of a man lying in a heap in such a position that I saw, in an instant, that some tragedy had occurred.

Creeping forward I bent beside him and touched his hand. It was still warm, yet I saw across the stones a large dark pool – a pool of blood, and at the same moment discovered that it issued from an ugly knife-wound just over the heart.

He was a respectably dressed man of forty, robust, heavily built, with dark moustache and shaven chin. As I touched his hand, which lay helpless at his side, my fingers came into contact with something hard, and I found that strapped around his waist he carried a revolver.

Quickly I took it out, for I had no weapon myself, and at a glance saw that it was the regulation pattern as supplied to the agents of police.

The man who had been stabbed to the heart so unerringly was probably a detective who had been left in charge of the villa after the police had taken possession of the place. Hearing a summons at the door he had perhaps gone to open it, when the ready knife had struck him down, and the desperate trio had passed over his body and entered the villa to prosecute their mysterious object.

I listened. There was no sound. The intruders, whatever their object, were in the main building; for it seemed that this narrow passage merely gave entrance to the servants’ quarters. The place was an enormous, rambling one, built, as I afterwards found, by Prince Torlonia in the days of the Borgia Pope, once full of splendour and magnificence, but sadly neglected and degenerated in these modern days.

Again I examined the prostrate man, placing my hand upon his heart but failing to detect any movement. He was dead without a doubt.

Noiselessly I crept forward, my ears strained to catch every sound, my hand gripping the dead man’s revolver. If I were discovered I could now, at least, make a fight for life. The fearless way in which they had struck down the detective was sufficient to show me that they would hesitate at nothing.

Those were exciting moments, for at the end of the narrow stone passage I passed through a door, and found myself in a great dark chamber which seemed to be unfurnished. The faint grey light that struggled in through the barred windows was sufficient to allow me to see that it opened into a great square hall, around which was set a number of ancient high-backed chairs of the same epoch as the house itself. The rooms were lined with ancient tapestries falling to decay, and there was everywhere a damp mouldy smell as though that wing of the place had long been closed and uninhabited.

Passing along another corridor, I opened a door at the farther end and found myself at once in the modernised portion of the place, in a corridor where, upon the thick dark red carpet, my feet fell noiselessly, and where a candle which the intruders had probably lit was set upon a table.

Again I listened. I fancied I caught the sound of voices, but was not quite certain.

For some moments I remained there, holding my breath in hesitation. To search for them in that great place was full of danger and difficulty. And yet, having gone so far, I was determined that I would ascertain their object in coming there.

At last, reassuring myself that the voices I had heard were only sounds in my imagination, I went forward again through an open door into a fine long picture-gallery, well carpeted as was the corridor. At the end showed another faint light, for the men had, I now saw, lit a child’s night-light which they had probably brought with them.

In that portion of the house there was evidence of wealth and luxury everywhere. Nardini had probably spent a good deal of the public money upon embellishing that fine old place with its wonderful sculptured fireplaces and frescoed and gilt ceilings.

Still scarcely daring to breathe lest my presence be detected, I went forward again, until of a sudden voices, plain and unmistakable, broke upon my ear, causing me to halt suddenly and stand motionless as a statue.

They were in some room in the vicinity. But where? It was quite dark where I stood, but from a door slightly open at some distance before me shone a thin streak of faint light, evidently from a candle.

Dare I approach and peep within?