The Mysterious Mr. Miller

At first I hesitated, for the risk was very great, but at last summoning courage I moved across the thick carpet to the open door and peered in.

It was a great salon, I found, a huge, high-roofed place with old gilt furniture upholstered in red silk brocade and some marvellous buhl cabinets full of rare china and bric-à-brac. The place was in darkness, save for the single night-light placed upon a chair – the intruders fearing, of course, to ignite the lamps as the light would shine outside and perhaps attract attention.

The great salon led into an inner room, and in there I saw their moving figures by the light of two candles that had been put upon the carpet. They were conversing only in low whispers and seemed to be groping about the floor in the farther corner of the room, as though in search of something.

I slipped into the big salon, and creeping from table to chair, bending double so as to be concealed the whole time, I managed to approach near the door of the inner room, and took up a position where I could both observe their movements and overhear their words.

Now that I reflect upon my actions of that night, I see how utterly reckless of life I was. A single slip, a cough, a sneeze, and I should be lost. And yet, holding my breath, I knelt behind that big gilt armchair wherein the princes of the cinquecento had once sat, and watched those men at their mysterious work.

The heavy red plush curtains had been drawn across the long windows, and I recognised that the apartment was a library or study, for there were big cases filled with old parchment-covered volumes, and set before one of the windows was a big carved writing-table. As I watched, the doctor lit the gas-lamp upon it, removing the green silk shade so as to give a better light in the room, and as he did so the young man in the grey hat, who had thrown off his coat and was on his hands and knees on the floor, suddenly picked up something which he handed to Miller, saying in Italian with a grin: – “This looks a little suspicious, does it not, signore?” Miller took the object in his hand, and started. Then I saw that it was a narrow gold bangle – a woman’s bracelet. He took it to the light, and read some words inscribed in the inside. Then he stood in silence and wonder.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Gavazzi, in broken English. “What is it?”

His friend handed it to him without a word.

But the doctor only shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and handed back the bangle.

At that moment the truth flashed across my mind – the truth unknown to those men. In that room – if that were Nardini’s study – the mysterious discovery had been made. The body of an unknown young Englishwoman had been found there.

Was that bangle her property? Miller had certainly recognised the inscription upon it, and knew its owner.

I saw that he stood there with knit brows, still glancing at the bracelet, as though mystified.

“Come,” urged Gavazzi, in the brisk businesslike way which appeared to be natural to him. “We have no time to lose if we really intend to be successful.” And he went down upon his knees in the farther corner of the room, carefully feeling the surface of the blue velvet-pile carpet with his hands.

“We’d better have it up,” he declared at last. “I feel sure it’s somewhere in this corner.”

“Then you never actually saw it?” remarked Miller, a trifle disappointed.

“No. But it isn’t likely he would ever reveal to me where he kept his most private secrets. We were friends, intimate friends, but Giovanni Nardini was not the man to reveal to even his own father what he considered was a secret. See this!” And rising he walked to the oak-panelled wainscotting, touched a spring, and there was revealed a small secret door leading down to a short flight of steps in the wall somewhere into the cellars below – a secret mode of egress.

Again he went to a book-case, part of which proved false, and there on pulling it away revealed a large iron safe let into the wall.

“You see I am aware of some of his secrets. The police think they’ve searched the place, but they’ve never discovered either of these, that’s very certain,” he laughed.

Then, with the younger man, he proceeded to tear up the carpet, showing that the floor, unlike that in most Italian houses, was boarded and not of mosaic.

All three moved the furniture and gradually rolled the carpet back until they had half-uncovered the room. It was heavy, exciting work, and the perspiration rolled from their brows in great beads.

Once the chair behind which I was concealed moved a little and the wheel squeaked.

Miller’s quick ear caught the sound.

“Hark!” he cried, starting up. “What’s that?”

“A mouse,” exclaimed the doctor, laughing. “I heard it. Don’t worry yourself, my dear James, we are safe enough now with that guard out of the way.”

By the aid of the candles they examined every floorboard, trying each to see if it were movable. But they were all fast, and gave no sign of covering any place of concealment. They seemed to be in search of some cavity where something they believed was concealed.

With their knuckles they tapped all over the floor, but the sound emitted was exactly the same everywhere.

For a full hour they searched until suddenly the doctor, who had been indefatigable, while running his hand along the floor close to the oak wainscoting quite near the writing-table, made a discovery which instantly brought his companions upon their knees at his side.

“Look!” he cried. “See! There is a little piece of a different wood let in here – round like a large wooden stud! I wonder what it is?” He pressed it with his fingers, but to no avail. Therefore he took out his pocket-knife and with the end pressed down hard, throwing all his weight upon his hand. “It gives!” he cried excitedly. “There’s some spring behind it! You are stronger,” he exclaimed, turning to the younger man. “Try. Push down, so!”

Chapter Thirty Two

The Ticking of the Clock

The man with the grey hat took the pocket-knife, knelt over the spot, placed the knife in position, and pressed with all his might, when slowly a panel of the oak wainscoting about two feet square fell forward until it lay flat at right angles, disclosing a small locked door behind.

“This is it, no doubt!” cried the doctor, tugging at the door. It yielded, disclosing a secret cupboard.

A clock set upon a cabinet on the side of the room near where I was hidden was ticking. I had not noticed that sound before, and I thought it strange.

Miller held the candle while the others peered within. They all had their backs turned to me, and in my eagerness I bent forward in order to obtain a better view of what was concealed there.

“See!” cried Gavazzi. “I was not mistaken! I knew he had some secret hiding-place here. In this room he spent days, sometimes with me, but more often locked in here alone. Fortunately for us, the police know nothing of this.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Miller. “Let us see what his treasures are. I wonder what he would say if he saw us handling his secrets,” he added, with a short dry laugh. “The papers to-day say that he’s been seen in Bahia.”

Evidently Lucie had for some reason kept her knowledge of the fugitive’s death from her father.

“He was always methodical,” remarked the Italian. “And he seems to have carried out his methods here. Look at all these pigeon-holes! Made by himself, it seems, from their roughness. He dared not call in a carpenter. But he was of a very mechanical turn of mind, and probably constructed the whole thing himself.”

“It certainly would escape observation,” remarked the young man, examining the thick old panel of polished oak that had fallen back.

The doctor had drawn from one of the pigeon-holes a bundle of official-looking papers folded and secured with tape. He glanced at them with critical eye and cast them aside as being without interest. Another, and another, he drew out, but none of them attracted his attention for more than a few moments.

“They are merely secret information collected against various politicians and personages – information that he thought might one day be useful,” said Gavazzi.

“And profitable, eh?” added Miller, with a laugh.

“Quite so. We may find it equally profitable to us one day,” remarked his companion. “They will prove interesting reading when we have time to go through them.”

They were evidently in search of something else. Surely they had not deliberately sacrificed a man’s life to obtain those few dusty papers? What, I wondered, was contained in that precious packet which the owner of that villa had given me before his death?

Two large matrices of official seals Miller drew out and examined.

“Ah! yes!” exclaimed Gavazzi, “I suspected he had those. They are copies of the seal of the Ministry, and with them he fabricated quite a number of official documents. By means of those he sent an order to the convict prison at Volteria to release Rastelli, the forger, who was a friend of his. The Governor at once set him at liberty, and does not know to this day that the order was a forgery. Indeed, I believe that, for a consideration, he used to give out these orders.”

“And he made them himself!” Miller laughed. “A pretty profitable business!” And he turned over the brass seals in his hand, while the little clock ticked on.

“Of course. If he had only been satisfied and not attempted too much, he would have remained years in office without any suspicion falling upon him. I, however, knew something of what was in progress, and yet he defied me and absolutely refused to let me share. Well – you know the rest,” he laughed. “I didn’t see why he should take all the profits and I do the work.”

“But you managed to be pretty well paid,” his friend remarked.

“I merely looked after myself. Yet, if Giovanni had not been a fool and taken me into the affair when he knew that I’d discovered everything, we might have run the Ministry as a joint concern until – well, until the next Cabinet crisis or King Umberto dismissed us. It’s a pity – a thousand pities – he was such a fool. But you see he got unnerved, he was afraid of his enemies, and so he acknowledged his peculations by bolting.”