The handsome, dark-haired girl had placed her hand upon my arm, and stood with her eyes anxiously fixed1 upon mine.
“Do you really mean this?” she asked, in a hoarse2, strained voice.
“I have told you quite frankly3 my intention,” was my answer. “I know that scoundrel—in fact I am myself a witness against Him.”
“In what manner?” she asked na?vely.
“That man is one of a clever gang of thieves who for years have eluded4 the police,” I replied. “In England he lives in security in a Cornish village under the name of Gordon-Wright, while here, on the Continent, he frequents the best hotels, and with his friends makes enormous hauls of money and jewels.”
“A thief!” she exclaimed, with amazement5 that I thought well feigned6. “And can you really actually prove this?”
“The coward robbed a friend of mine who, being ill, could not take care of himself,” I said. “I have only to say one single word to the nearest police office and they will arrest him wherever he may be. And now, to speak quite openly, I tell you that I mean to do this.”
“You will have him arrested?”
“Yes, and by so doing I shall at least save Ella. The thing is really very simple after all. I intend to defy him. Ella is mine and he shall not snatch her from me.”
“Then you know him—I mean you knew him before I introduced you?” she asked, after a brief pause.
“I know him rather too well,” I answered meaningly. “It is curious, Miss Miller7,” I added, “that your father should be the intimate friend of a man of such bad reputation. He surely cannot be aware of his true character.”
She knit her brows again, for she saw that she was treading on dangerous ground. She was not an adventuress herself but a sweet and charming girl, yet I had no doubt but that she participated in her father’s many guilty secrets. Perhaps it was her easy-going cosmopolitan8 air that suggested this, or perhaps it may have been owing to her earnest desire that Ella should marry that man, and thus be prevented from betraying what she had learnt on that fateful night at Studland.
“Dear old dad always makes friends far too easily,” was her evasive reply, the response of a clever woman. “I’ve told him so lots of times. Travelling so much as he does, half over Europe, he is for ever making new acquaintances, and queer ones they are, too, sometimes, I can tell you. We’ve had visitors here, in this flat, of all grades, from broken-down English jockeys and music hall artists trying to borrow their fare third-class back to England, to lords, earls, Stock Exchange men and company promoters whose names are as household words in the halfpenny papers. Yet I suppose it’s so with many men. They are big-hearted, make friends easily, and everybody takes advantage of their hospitality. It is so with my father. All his friends impose on him without exception.”
“Well, it’s a pity that he’s intimate with the man I knew as Lieutenant9 Shacklock, for when he is in the hands of the police some curious revelations will be made—revelations that will reveal the existence of a most ingenious and daring Continental10 gang. You see,” I added, with a smile, “I’m not making a mere11 idle statement—I know. These men once robbed a friend of mine, and it is only just to him that, having discovered Shacklock, I should give information against him.”
“You mean you will win Ella by freeing her of that man?” said my companion, apparently12 following me for the first time.
“Exactly. If he holds any secret of hers, he is quite welcome to speak. Neither I nor Ella will fear anything, you may depend upon that. A man of his stamp always seeks some low-down revenge. It is only what may be expected. Perhaps I may as well tell you that I recognised him when you introduced us, and that I have already been down to Cornwall and seen the smug scoundrel at his home. He’s a church-warden, a parish councillor and all the rest of it, and the people believe he’s worth thousands. He poses as a philanthropist in a mild way, opens local bazaars13, and makes speeches in support of the local habitation of the Primrose14 League. All this is to me most amusing. The fellow little dreams that he sits upon the edge of a volcano that to-morrow may engulf15 him—as it certainly must.”
“But is this worth while—to denounce such a man? You’ll be compelled to support your allegations,” she said.
“Oh! I can do that, never fear,” I laughed. “I shall bring his victim forward—the man he robbed so heartlessly. English juries have no compassion16 for the swell-mobsman or the elegant hotel-thief.”
I watched her face as I spoke17, and saw the effect my words were having upon her. If I denounced him her own father would at once be implicated18. Hers were alarming apprehensions19, no doubt.
I saw that I was gradually gaining the whip-hand over circumstance. She recognised now that her father was in deadly peril20 of exposure.
And yet did she know the truth, after all? If she actually knew that the young Chilian Carrera, the man she loved when they lived outside Paris, had met with his death through her own father’s treachery, she surely would not hold him in such esteem21.
Yet was it likely that such skilled scoundrels as the mysterious Miller, Milner—or whatever he chose to call himself—and Gordon-Wright alias22 Lieutenant Harold Shacklock would risk exposure by betraying their true occupation to a sweet high-minded girl such as Lucie really was? Had she been their decoy; had there, indeed, been any suspicion that she had assisted them in their clever conspiracies23 of fraud then it would have been different.
There was, however, no suspicion except that she had spoken of her father’s “secret,” which she feared that Ella had learned when she overheard her father’s conversation with his friend. That was a curious and unaccountable feature. She knew that her father held some secret that was shared by Gordon-Wright, that gallant24 ladies’-man who had wormed himself into the confidence of so many English and American women travelling on Continental railways, women whose jewels and valuables had subsequently disappeared.
She, however, held her father in the highest regard and esteem, and that fact in itself was sufficient to convince me that she was after all in ignorance of his true profession.
She might have entertained suspicions of the lieutenant, suspicions that were verified by the denunciation I had just made, but as I looked into her pale dark face I could not bring myself to believe that she knew her father’s true source of income. There was some secret of her fathers, a secret that she knew must be kept at any cost. It was that which she feared Ella might betray, and for that reason she deemed it best that my love should be allowed to become the false lieutenant’s wife.
Thus I argued within myself as I stood there beside her with the blood-red light of the dying day streaming in from across the sea.
I recollected26 Sammy’s warning; I recollected, too, the strange circumstances of Nardini’s death in Shepherd’s Bush, and of what had been told me by this woman now at my side. She was doomed27, she said—and, true enough, there was black despair written in that dark face, now so pale and agitated28.
She was as much a mystery as she had been on that first day when we had met—even though through her instrumentality the mystery of my well-beloved’s self-effacement had actually been cleared up.
That she detested29 the lieutenant had been palpable from the first mention I had made of him. Therefore I argued that she suspected him of playing her father false, even though she might be unaware30 of their real relationship. Indeed it was not natural for a father of Miller’s stamp to allow his daughter to know of his shameful31 calling. She had told me that she remained at home with old Marietta—the grey-haired Tuscan woman who had admitted me—while her father travelled hither and thither32 across Europe. Those unscrupulous “birds of prey,” known to the police as international thieves, migrate in flocks, travelling swiftly from one frontier to another and ever eluding33 the vigilance of the agents in search of them. The international thief is a veritable artist in crime, the cleverest and most audacious scoundrel of the whole criminal fraternity.
“I quite understand your feelings and all that you must suffer, Mr Leaf,” she said at last in a mechanical voice. “I know how deeply you love Ella, and, after all that has passed, it is not in the least surprising that you will not stand by and see her married to such a man as Gordon-Wright. Yet is it really prudent34 to act without carefully considering every point? That she is about to become that man’s wife shows that she is in his power—that he possesses some mysterious hold over her. And suppose you denounced him to the police, would he not, on his part, revenge himself upon her?”
“Probably. But I will risk that.”
“Personally I think that Ella will be the greater sufferer from such an injudicious action.”
Curious. Her words bore out exactly what Ella herself had said. Yet she surely could know nothing of the secret between them. Until half an hour ago, when I had told her, she was not even aware that Gordon-Wright was acquainted with the woman who had been betrothed36 to me.
“But I do not intend that she shall fall the victim of this adventurer,” I said quickly, for I recognised in her words a fear that her father’s secret might be exposed.
“If he really possesses a hold over her sufficient to compel her to marry him, any attempt to rescue her may only cause her complete ruin,” she said. “Have you any idea of the nature of this extraordinary influence he seems to have over her?”
“None. I am in entire ignorance.”
“When we met that night at Studland I certainly was deceived,” she went on. “I believed that she was beside herself with delight at finding you again, and still unmarried—I never dreamed that she was engaged to another—and to Gordon-Wright of all men.”
“Why do you say ‘of all men’?”
“Because—well, because he’s the last man a girl of her stamp should marry.”
“Then you know more about him than you care to admit, Miss Miller?”
“We need not discuss him,” was her brief answer. “It is Ella we have to think of, not of him.”
“Yes,” I said, “we have to think of her—to extricate37 her from the horrible fate that threatens her—marriage to a scoundrel.” Then turning again to my pretty companion I said, in a voice intended to be more confidential38: “Now, Miss Miller, your position and mine are, after all, very curious. Though we have been acquainted so short a time, yet the fact of your having been Ella’s most intimate friend has cemented our own friendship to an extraordinary degree. We have exchanged confidences as old friends, and I have told you the secrets of my heart. Yet you, on your part, have not been exactly open with me. You are still concealing39 from me certain facts which, if you would but reveal, would, I know, assist me in releasing Ella from her bondage40. Why do you not speak plainly? I have travelled here, across Europe, to beg of you to tell me the truth,” I added, looking straight into her pale serious face.
“How can I tell you the truth when I am ignorant of it myself?” she protested.
“What I have told you this evening concerning Ella’s engagement to that blackguard has surprised you, and it has also shown you that the mysterious secret of your father’s of which you have spoken may be imperilled, eh?”
She nodded. Then, after some hesitation41, she said:—“Not only that, but something further. That Gordon-Wright should aspire42 to Ella’s hand is utterly43 mystifying.”
“Why?”
“Well—you recollect25 what I told you regarding—regarding that man who died in the house where you were living in London,” she said, in a low, faltering44 voice.
“You mean the ex-Minister of Justice, Nardini?”
She nodded an affirmative.
“I remember perfectly45 all that you told me. He refused to speak the truth concerning you.”
“He laughed in my face when I asked him to make a confession46 that would save me,” she said hoarsely47, her dark eyes flashing with a dangerous fire. “He was a coward; he sacrificed me, a woman, because he feared to speak the truth. Ah!” she cried, clenching48 her hands, “you see me here wearing a mask of calm and tranquillity49, but within my heart is a volcano of bitterness, of scorn for that wretched embezzler50 who carried his secret to the grave.”
“I can quite understand it, and fully35 sympathise with you,” I said, in a kindly51 tone, recollecting52 all that had passed between us after she had discovered the mysterious Italian dead in that upstairs room at Shepherd’s Bush. “But I hope you are not still disturbed over what may, after all, be merely an ungrounded fear?”
“Ungrounded!” she cried. “Ah! would to Heaven it were ungrounded. No. The knowledge that the blow must fall upon me sooner or later—to-day, to-morrow, in six months’ time, or in six years—holds me ever breathless in terror. Each morning when I wake I know not whether I shall again return to my bed, or whether my next sleep will be within the grave.”
“No, no,” I protested, “don’t speak like this. It isn’t natural.” But I saw how desperate she had now become.
“I intend to cheat them out of their revenge,” she said, in a low whisper, the red glow of the sundown falling full upon her haggard face. “They shall never triumph over me in life. With my corpse53 they may do as they think proper.”
“They? Who are they?”
“Shall I tell you?” she cried, her starting eyes fixing themselves upon mine. “That man Gordon-Wright is one of them.”
“He is your enemy?” I gasped54.
“One of my bitterest. He believes I am in ignorance, but fortunately I discovered his intention. I told Nardini, and yet he refused to speak. He knew the peril in which I existed, and yet, coward that he was, he only laughed in my face. He fled from Rome. I followed him to England only to discover that, alas55! he was dead—that he had preserved his silence.”
“It was a blackguardly thing,” I declared. “And this fellow, Gordon-Wright, or whatever he calls himself, though your father’s friend, is at the same time your worst enemy?”
“That is unfortunately so, even though it may appear strange. To me he is always most charming, indeed no man could be more gallant and polite, but I know what is lurking56 behind all that pleasant exterior57.”
“And yet you are opposed to me going to the police and exposing him?” I said in surprise.
“I am opposed to anything that must, of necessity, reflect upon both Ella and myself,” was her answer. “Remember the lieutenant knows that you and I are acquainted. I introduced him to you. If you denounced him as a thief he would at once conclude that you and I had conspired58 to effect his ruin and imprisonment59.”
“Well—and if he did?”
“If he did, my own ruin would only be hastened,” she said. “Ah! Mr Leaf, you have no idea of the strange circumstances which conspired to place me in the critical position in which I to-day find myself. Though young in years and with an outward appearance of brightness, I have lived a veritable lifetime of woe60 and despair,” she went on, in a voice broken by emotion.
“In those happy days at Enghien I loved—in those sweetest days of all my life I believed that happiness was to be mine always. Alas! it was so short-lived that now, when I recall it, it only seems like some pleasant dream. My poor Manuel died and I was left alone with a heritage of woe that gradually became a greater burden as time went on, and I was drawn61 into the net that was so cleverly spread for me—because I was young, because I was, I suppose, good-looking, because I was inexperienced in the wickedness of the world. Ah! when I think of it all, when I think how one word from Giovanni Nardini would have liberated62 me and showed the world that I was what I was, an honest woman, I am seized by a frenzy63 of hatred64 against him, as against that man Gordon-Wright—the man who knows the truth and intends to profit by it, even though I sacrifice my own life rather than face their lying denunciation without power to defend myself. Ah! you cannot understand. You can never understand!” and her eyes glowed with a thirst for revenge upon the dead man who had so unscrupulously thrust her back into that peril so deadly that she was hourly prepared to take her own life without compunction and without regret.
“But all this astounds65 me,” I said, in deep sympathy. “I am your friend, Miss Miller,” I went on, taking her slim hand in mine and holding it as I looked her straight in the face. “This man, Gordon-Wright, is, we find, our mutual66 enemy. Cannot you explain to me the whole circumstances? Our interests are mutual. Let us unite against this man who holds you, as well as my loved one, in his banal67 power! Tell me the truth. You have been compromised. How?”
She paused, her hand trembled in mine, and great tears coursed slowly down her white cheeks. She was reflecting whether she dare reveal to me the ghastly truth.
Her thin lips trembled, but at first no word escaped them. Laughter and the sound of gaiety came up from the promenade68 below.
I stood there in silence in the soft fading light await her confession—confession surely of one of the strangest truths that has ever been told by the lips of any woman.
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1
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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eluded
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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bazaars
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| （东方国家的）市场( bazaar的名词复数 )； 义卖； 义卖市场； （出售花哨商品等的）小商品市场 | |
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primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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engulf
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| vt.吞没，吞食 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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implicated
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| adj.密切关联的；牵涉其中的 | |
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apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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alias
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| n.化名；别名；adv.又名 | |
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conspiracies
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| n.阴谋，密谋( conspiracy的名词复数 ) | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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eluding
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的现在分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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extricate
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| v.拯救，救出；解脱 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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clenching
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的现在分词 ) | |
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tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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embezzler
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| n.盗用公款者，侵占公款犯 | |
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51
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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recollecting
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| v.记起，想起( recollect的现在分词 ) | |
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53
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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54
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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55
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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conspired
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| 密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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59
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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60
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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64
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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astounds
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| v.使震惊，使大吃一惊( astound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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banal
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| adj.陈腐的，平庸的 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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