"It is surely a hard life," I observed.

"At first, yes. One must be strong in body and in mind to successfully pa.s.s the period of probation," he answered. "But afterwards the Capuchin's life is surely one of the pleasantest on earth, banded as we are to do good and to exercise charity in the name of Sant' Antonio.

But," he added, with a smile, "I did not bring you here, signore, to endeavour to convert you from your Protestant faith. I asked you to accompany me, because you have told me what is a profound and remarkable mystery. You have told me of the death of Burton Blair, the man who was my friend, and to whose advantage it was to meet me in San Frediano to-night. There were reasons--the very strongest reasons a man could have--why he should have kept the appointment. But he has not done so.

His enemies have willed it otherwise, and they have stolen his secret!"

While he spoke he fumbled in a drawer of the little deal writing-table, and drew forth something, adding in deep earnestness--

"You knew poor Blair intimately--more intimately, perhaps, than I did of later years. You knew his enemies as well as his friends. Tell me, have you ever met the original of either of these men?"

And he held before my gaze two cabinet photographs.

One of them was quite unfamiliar to me, but the other I recognised in an instant.

"Why!" I said, "that's my old friend Reginald Seton--Blair's friend."

"No," the monk declared in a hard, meaning tone, "not his friend, signore--his bitterest enemy."

CHAPTER TEN.

THE MAN OF SECRETS.

"I don't understand you," I exclaimed, resenting this charge against the man who was my most intimate friend. "Seton has been even a better friend to poor Blair than myself."

Fra Antonio smiled strangely and mysteriously, as only the subtle Italian can. He seemed to pity my ignorance, and inclined to humour me in my belief in Seton's genuineness.

"I know," he laughed. "I know almost as much as you do upon the one side, while upon the other my knowledge extends somewhat further. All I can say is that I have watched, and have formed my own conclusions."

"That Seton was not his friend?"

"That Seton was not his friend," he repeated slowly and very distinctly.

"But surely you make no direct charge against him?" I cried. "You surely don't think he's responsible for this tragedy--if tragedy it really is."

"I make no direct charge," was his ambiguous reply. "Time will reveal the truth--no doubt."

I longed to ask him straight out whether he did not sometimes go under the name of Paolo Melandrini, yet I feared to do so lest I should arouse his suspicion unduly.

"Time can only reveal that Reginald Seton has been one of the dead man's best friends," I said reflectively.

"Outwardly, yes," was the Capuchin's dubious remark.

"An enemy as deadly as the Ceco?" I inquired, watching his face the while.

"The Ceco!" he gasped, instantly taken aback by my bold remark. "Who told you of him? What do you know regarding him?"

The monk had evidently forgotten what he had written in that letter to Blair.

"I know that he is in London," I responded, taking my cue from his own words. "The girl is with him," I added, utterly unaware however of the ident.i.ty of the person referred to.

"Well?" he asked.

"And if they are in London it is surely for no good purpose?"

"Ah!" he said. "Blair has told you something--told you of his suspicions?"

"Of late he has gone about in daily dread of secret a.s.sa.s.sination," I replied. "He was evidently afraid of the Ceco."

"And surely he had need to be," exclaimed Fra Antonio, his dark, brilliant eyes again turned upon mine in the semi-darkness. "The Ceco is not an individual to be dealt with easily."

"But what took him to London?" I demanded. "Did he go with harmful intentions?"

The burly monk shrugged his shoulders, answering--

"d.i.c.k Dawson was never of a very benevolent disposition. He evidently discovered something, and swore to be avenged."

His remarks made plain one very important fact, namely, that the man who went by the nickname of the "blind man" in Italy was really an Englishman of the name of d.i.c.k Dawson--an adventurer most probably.

"Then you suspect him of complicity in the theft of the secret?" I suggested.

"Well, as the little sachet of chamois leather is missing, I am inclined to think that it must have pa.s.sed into his hands."

"And the girl, what of her?"

"His daughter, Dolly, will a.s.sist him, that's plain. She's as shrewd as her father, and possesses a woman's cunning into the bargain--a dangerous girl, to say the least. I warned poor Blair of them both," he added, suddenly, it seemed, recollecting his letter. "But I am glad you have recognised one of these photographs. His name is Seton, you say.

Well, if he is your friend, take my advice and beware. Are you certain you have never seen this other man--a friend of Seton's?" he asked very earnestly.

I carried the picture in my hand to where the dim oil lamp was burning, and examined it very closely. It was a vignette of a long-faced, bald-headed, full-bearded man, wearing a stand-up collar, a black frock-coat and well-tied bow cravat. The stud in his shirt front was somewhat peculiar, for it seemed like the miniature cross of some foreign order of chivalry, and produced a rather neat and novel effect.

The eyes were those of a keen, crafty man, and the hollow cheeks gave the countenance a slightly haggard and striking appearance.

It was a face that, to my recollection, I had never seen before, yet such were its peculiarities that they at once became photographed indelibly upon my memory.

I told him of my failure to recognise who it was, whereupon he urged--

"When you return, watch the movements of your so-called friend Seton, and you will perhaps meet his friend. When you do, write to me here, and leave him to me." And he replaced the photograph in the drawer, but as he did so my quick eye detected that within was a playing card, the seven of clubs, with some letters written upon it very similar to those upon the card in my pocket. I mentioned it, but he merely smiled and quickly closed the drawer.

Yet surely the fact of the cipher being in his possession was more than strange.

"Do you ever travel away from Lucca?" I inquired at last, recollecting how I had met him at Blair's table in Grosvenor Square, but not at all satisfied regarding the discovery of the inscribed card.

"Seldom--very seldom," he answered. "It is so difficult to obtain permission, and then it is only given to visit relatives. If there is any monastery in the vicinity of our destination we must beg our bed there, in preference to remaining in a private house. The rules sound irksome to you," he added with a smile. "But I a.s.sure you they do not gall us in the least. They are beneficial to man's happiness and comfort, all of them."

Again I turned the conversation, endeavouring to ascertain some facts concerning the dead man's mysterious secret, which I somehow felt convinced was known to him. But all to no avail. He would tell me nothing.

All he explained was that the reason of the appointment in Lucca that evening was a very strong one, and that if alive the millionaire would undoubtedly have kept it.

"He was in the habit of meeting me at certain intervals either in the Church of San Frediano, or at other places in Lucca, in Pescia, or Pistoja," the monk said. "We generally varied the place of meeting from time to time."

"And that, of course, accounts for his mysterious absences from home," I remarked, for his movements were frequently very erratic, so that even Mabel was unaware of his address. He was generally supposed, however, to be in the North of England or in Scotland. No one had any idea that he travelled so far afield as Central Italy.

The monk's statement also made it plain that Blair had some very strong motive for keeping these frequent appointments. Fra Antonio, his secret friend, had undoubtedly also been his most intimate and most trusted one.