The countenance disclosed by the lamp in the great ill-lit station was not that of a man in female disguise, as I had suspected, but of a woman. Her identity it was that held me in amazement, for that instant I recognized her as none other than the dark-haired, handsome woman whom I had seen lying dead upon the floor of the deck-house on the previous night.
Why were they leaving the yacht in company? What fresh conspiracy was there in progress?
I had always believed old Benjamin Keppel to be the soul of honor, but the revelations of the past few hours caused me utter bewilderment. I stood there in hesitation, and glancing up at the clock saw that there were still three minutes before the departure of the train.
Next moment I had made a resolve to follow them and ascertain the truth. I entered the ng-office, obtained a ticket to Modane, the French frontier beyond Mont Cenis, and a few moments later was sitting alone in a compartment at the rear of the train. I had no luggage, nothing whatever except the small travelling-reticule suspended from my waist-belt, and I had set out for an unknown destination.
The train moved off, and soon we were tearing through the night across that wide plain which was the sea-bottom in the medival days when the sculptured town of Pisa was a prosperous seaport, the envy of both Florentines and Genoese, and past the spot marked by a church where St. Peter is said to have landed. Well I knew that wide Tuscan plain, with its fringe of high, vine-clad mountains, for in my girlhood days I had wandered over it hither and thither in the royal forest and through the smiling vine-lands.
At last, after three-quarters of an hour, we ran into the busy station of Pisa, that point so well known to every tourist who visits Italy. It is the highway to Florence, Rome, and Naples; just as it is to Genoa, Turin, or Milan, therefore as the traveller in Switzerland must at some time find himself at Bale, so does the traveller in Italy always find himself at Pisa. Yet how few strangers who pass through, or who drive down to look at the leaning tower and the great old cathedral, white as a marble tomb, ever take the trouble to explore the country beyond? They never go up to quiet, gray old Lucca, a town with walls and gates the same to-day as when Dante wandered there, untouched by the hand of the vandal, unspoilt by modern progress, undisturbed by tourist invaders. Its narrow, old-world streets of decaying palaces, its leafy piazzas, its Lily theatre, its proud, handsome people, all charming to one who, like myself, loves her Italy and the gay-hearted, mirthful Tuscan.
Little time was there for reflection, however, for on alighting at Pisa I was compelled to conceal myself until the arrival of the express on its way from Rome to Paris. While I waited the thought occurred to me that the Vispera was still in peril, and I alone could save her passengers and crew. Yet with the mysterious woman still alive there could, I pondered, be no motive in blowing up the ship. Perhaps the idea had happily been abandoned, and some color was lent to this latter theory by the fact that Keppel had not made any excuse by which to prevent Gerald from travelling farther in the doomed vessel. No father could possibly allow his son to sail in a ship which he intended should never reach port.
Nevertheless, the non-appearance of the individual whose voice I had heard, but whom I had not seen, was disconcerting. Try how I would, I could not get rid of the suspicion aroused by Keppel's flight that foul play was still intended. If it were not, why had not the old millionaire continued his cruise? The unknown woman had been concealed on board for weeks, therefore there was no reason why she should not have remained there for another three days until we reached Naples. No, that some curious mystery was connected with the whole affair I felt confident.
I peered forth from the corner in which I was standing and saw Keppel and his companion enter the buffet. Then, when they had disappeared, I made a sudden resolve, and entering the telegraph office wrote the following message:
To Captain Davis, S. Y. 'Vispera,' in port, Livorno.
"Have altered arrangements. Sail at once for Genoa. Box and packages I spoke of will join you there. Leave on receipt of this.
"Keppel."
I handed it to the telegraphist, saying in Italian, "I want this delivered on board to-night most particularly."
He looked at it and shook his head.
"I fear, Signorina," he answered with grave politeness, "that delivery is quite impossible. It is after hours, and the message will remain in the office and be delivered with letters in the morning."
"But it must reach the Captain to-night," I declared.
The man elevated his shoulders slightly and showed his palms, the Tuscan gesture of regret.
"At Livorno they are not, I am sorry to say, very obliging."
"Then you believe it to be absolutely useless to send the message, expecting it to be delivered before morning?"
"The Signorina understands me exactly."
"But what am I to do?" I cried in desperation. "This message must reach the Captain before midnight."
The man reflected for a moment. Then he answered,—
"There is but one way I can suggest."
"What is that?" I cried anxiously, for I heard a train approaching, and I knew it must be the Paris express.
"To send a special messenger to Livorno. A train starts in half-an-hour, and the message can then be delivered by half-past eleven."
"Could you find me one?" I asked. "I'm willing to bear all expenses."
"My son will go, if the Signorina so wishes," he responded.
"Thank you so much," I replied, a great weight lifted from my mind. "I leave the matter entirely in your hands. If you will kindly see that this message is delivered you will be performing not only myself but a number of other persons a very great service."
"The Signorina's instruction shall be obeyed," he answered, and having placed some money to cover expenses upon the counter, I again thanked him and left, feeling that, although I had been guilty of forgery, I had, nevertheless, saved the yacht from destruction.
The train with its glaring head-lights swept into the station from its long journey across Maremma marshes, but I saw with considerable dismay that there was but one sleeping-car, the only through car for the frontier. I was therefore compelled to travel in this, even at the risk of meeting Keppel in the corridor. One cannot well travel in one of those stuffy cars of the Compagnie International des Wagon-Lits without being seen by all one's fellow-travellers, and here my first difficulty presented itself.
I watched the old gentleman and his companion enter the car, and from the platform saw them shown their respective berths by the conductor. Keppel was given a berth in a two-bed compartment with another man, while the tall, dark woman was shown to one of the compartments set aside for ladies at the other end of the car.
With satisfaction I watched the old millionaire take his companion's hand and wish her good-night, and then, when his door had closed, I myself mounted into the car and demanded a place.
"The Signorina is fortunate. We have just one berth vacant," answered the man in Italian. "This way, please," and taking me along the corridor he rapped at the door of the compartment to which he had just shown the mysterious woman.
There was the sound of quick shuffling within, the door was opened, and I found myself face to face with her.
I left it to the conductor to explain my presence, and entering, closed and bolted the door behind me.
"I regret that I have been compelled to disturb you, but this is the only berth vacant," I said in English in a tone of apology, for I noticed that her black eyes flashed inquiringly at me, and therefore deemed it best to be on friendly terms with her.
"Don't mention it," she answered quite affably. "I'm pleased that you're English. I feared some horrid foreign woman would be put in to be my travelling-companion. Are you going far?"
"To the frontier," I responded vaguely. The extent of my journey depended upon the length of hers.
Then after a further exchange of courtesies we prepared for the night, and entered our narrow berths, she choosing the upper one and I the lower.
As far as I could judge she was nearly fifty, still extremely handsome, her beauty being of the Southern type, and her black hair and coiffure, with huge tortoise-shell comb, giving her a Spanish appearance. She wore several beautiful rings, and I noticed that on her neck, concealed by day by her bodice, was some tiny charm suspended by a thin golden chain. Her voice and bearing were those of an educated woman, and she was buxom without being beefy.
The roar of the train and the grinding of the wheels as we whirled through those seventy-odd tunnels that separate Pisa from Genoa rendered sleep utterly impossible, so by mutual consent we continued our conversation.
She seemed like the "Ancient Mariner"—needing some one to whom she could tell her story. She needed an audience who could realize the fine points of her play. From the first she seemed bursting with items about herself, little dreaming that I was acting as spy upon her. I secretly congratulated myself upon my astuteness, and proceeded to draw her out. Her slight accent puzzled me, but it was due, I discovered, to the fact that her mother had been Portuguese. She seemed to label everything with her own intellectual acquirements. To me, a perfect stranger, she chatted during that night journey about her fine figure and her power over men,—about her ambitions and her friends; but her guardian interfered with her friends. He, her guardian, was an old man and jealous, had her money invested in America, and would not allow her to look at a man. If she did look at men she received no money. She was not forty, she told me, and he, her guardian, who was also in the train, was over seventy.
When she was not telling me the story of her loves, and her father, mother, and step-father, she filled in the time by telling me about some man whom she called Frank, who had a pretty-faced wife addicted to the illicit consumption of brandy.
"Trouble?" she wandered on. "Oh, I've had such lots and lots of it that I'm beginning to feel very old already. Troubles I always think are divided into two classes—one controlled by a big-horned, cloven-hoofed devil, and the other by the snippy little devil that flashes in and out of our hearts. The big devil is usually placed upon us by others."
I laughed, admitting that there was much truth in her words.
"And the other—the little imp?" I asked.
"The other? This insane perversity of human nature gets hold of us whether we will or not. It makes us for the time ignore all that is best in ourselves and in others—it is part of us. Though we know well it is all within ourselves, it will cause our tears to flow and our sorrows to pile up. It is all a fictitious substance with possibly a mint of happiness lying below. We are conscious of it all, but the insanity makes us ignore it for so long that the little imp completes its work, and the opportunity is lost. But why are we moralizing?" she added. "Let's try and get to sleep, shall we?"
To this I willingly acquiesced, for, truth to tell, I did not give credence to a single word of the rather romantic story she had related regarding herself, her friends, and her jealous guardian. I had met women of her stamp many times before. The only way to make them feel is to tell them the truth, devoid of all flattery.
She struck me as a woman with a past—her whole appearance was of such. Now a woman with a checkered past and an untrammelled present is always more or less interesting to women as well as men. She is a mystery. The mystery is that men cannot quite believe that a smart woman with knowledge cut loose from all fetters is proof against flattery. She "queens" it while they study her. Interest in a woman is only one step from love for her—a fact of which we of the fairer sex are very well aware.
Ulrica had once expressed an opinion that pasts were not so bad if it were not for some of the memories that cling to them, not, of course, that the past of either of us had been anything out of the ordinary. Memories that cling to others or the hint of a "past" certainly make you of interest to others, especially to men, and a menace to the imagination of other women; but the memories that hover about yourself are sometimes like truths—brutal.
Memories! As I lay there upon my hard, narrow bed, being whirled through those suffocating tunnels in the cliffs beside the Mediterranean, I could not somehow get away from memory. The story this mysterious woman had related had awakened all the sad recollections of my own life. It seemed as though an avalanche of cruel truths confronted my mental vision. At every instant those truths struck a blow that left a scar deep and unsightly as any made by the knife. There was tragedy in every one. The first that came to me was of a day long ago. Ah me! I was young then, a child in years, a novice in experience, on that day when I admitted to Ernest my deep and fervent affection. How brief it all had been! I had, alas! now awakened to the hard realities of life and to the anguish the heart is capable of holding. The sweetest part of love, the absolute trust, had died long ago. My heart had lost its lightness never to return, for his love for me was dead. His fond tenderness of those by-gone days was, alas! only a memory.
Yet he must have loved me! With me it had been the love of my womanhood—the love that is born with youth, that overlooks, forgives, and loves again; that gives friendship, truth, and loyalty. What, I wondered, were his thoughts when we had encountered each other at Monte Carlo? He showed neither interest nor regret. No, he had cast me aside, leaving me to endure that crushing sorrow and brain-torture which had been the cause of my long illness. He remembered nothing. To him our love was a mere incident. Of a verity, memory is the scar of truth's cruel wound.
I lay there wondering to myself if ever again I should feel any uplifting joy or any heartrending sorrow. Ah! if women could only outgrow the child part of their natures, hearts would not bleed so much. One of the greatest surprises in life is to discover how much sorrow the heart can bear, how acutely it can ache, how it can be strained to the utmost tension, crowded with agony, and yet not break. This is moralizing and smacks of sentiment, but it is nature—after you get acquainted with it.
The train roared on, the woman above me slept soundly, and with the tears starting in my eyes I tried hard to burn the bridges into the past and seek forgetfulness in sleep. The process of burning, alas! can never be accomplished, thanks to one's too retentive memory, but slumber came to me at last, and I must have dozed some time, for when I awoke we were in Genoa, and daylight was already showing through the chinks of the crimson blinds.
But the woman who had told the curious story slept on. Probably the concoction of so much romantic fiction had wearied her brain. The story she had related could not, of course, be true. If she were really old Keppel's ward, then what motive had he in concealing her in that gilded deck-house which was believed to be stored with curios? Who too was that unseen man whom he had apparently taken into his confidence—the man who had promised assistance by blowing up the yacht with all hands?
I shuddered at thought of that wicked, dastardly plot.
Yet Keppel had been declared by this unknown person to be the murderer of the woman now lying in the berth above me. Why?
The train was at a stand-still, and I rose to peep out. As I turned to re-enter my berth again my eyes fell upon the sleeping form of my companion. Her face was turned towards me, and her bodice, unhooked, disclosed a delicate white throat and neck.
I bent quickly to examine more closely what I saw there. Upon the throat were two dark marks, one on either side,—the marks of a human finger and a thumb,—the exact counterpart of those puzzling marks found upon the throat of poor Reggie.
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