"_Dio Signor Padrone!_" he cried.

I staggered as though I had received a blow.

Olinto Santini in the flesh, smiling and well, stood there before me!

CHAPTER VIII

LIFE'S COUNTER-CLAIM

No words of mine can express my absolute and abject amazement when I faced the man, whom I had seen lying cold and dead upon that gray stone slab in the mortuary at Dumfries.

My eye caught the customer who, on the entry of Olinto, had dropped his paper and sat staring at him in wonderment. The detective had evidently been furnished with a photograph of the dead man, and now, like myself, discovered him alive and living.

"Signor Padrone!" cried the man whose appearance was so absolutely bewildering. "How did you find me here? I admit that I deceived you when I told you I worked at the Milano," he went on rapidly in Italian. "But it was under compulsion--my actions that night were not my own--but those of others."

"Yes, I understand," I said. "But come out into the street. I don't wish to speak before these people. Your padrone knows Italian, no doubt."

"Ah! only a very little," he answered, smiling. "Have no fear of him."

"But there is Emilio, the cook?"

"Then you have met him!" he exclaimed quickly, with a strange look of apprehension. "He is an undesirable person, signore."

"So I gather," I answered. "But I desire to speak to you outside--not here." And then turning with a smile to the Pole, I apologized for taking away his servant for a few minutes. "Recollect, I am his old master, I added."

"Of course, m'sieur," answered the Pole, bowing politely. "Speak with him where and how long you will. He is entirely at your service."

And when we were outside in Westbourne Grove, Olinto walking by my side in wonderment, I asked suddenly:

"Tell me. Have you ever been in Scotland--at Dumfries?"

"Never, signore, in my life. Why?"

"Answer me another question," I said quickly. "You married Armida at the Italian Consulate. Where is she now--where is she this morning?"

He turned pale, and I saw a complete change in his countenance.

"Ah, signore!" he responded, "I only wish I could tell."

"It is untrue that she is an invalid," I went on, "or that you live in Lambeth. Your address is in Albany Road, Camberwell. You can't deny these facts."

"I do not deny them, Signor Commendatore. But how did you learn this?"

"The authorities in Italy know everything," I answered. "Like that of all your countrymen, your record is written down at the Commune."

"It is a clean one, at any rate, signore," he declared with some slight warmth. "I have a permesso to carry a revolver, which is in itself sufficient proof that I am a man of spotless character."

"I cast no reflection whatever upon you, Olinto," I answered. "I have merely inquired after your wife, and you do not give me a direct reply."

We had walked to the Royal Oak, and stood talking on the curb outside.

"I give you no reply, because I can't," he said in Italian. "Armida--my poor Armida--has left home."

"Why did you tell me such a tale of distress regarding her?"

"As I have already explained, signore, I was not then master of my own actions. I was ruled by others. But I saved your life at risk of my own.

Some day, when it is safe, I will reveal to you everything."

"Let us allow the past to remain," I said. "Where is your wife now?"

He hesitated a moment, looking straight into my face.

"Well, Signor Commendatore, to tell the truth, she has disappeared."

"Disappeared!" I echoed. "And have you not made any report to the police?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"For reasons known only to myself I did not wish the police to pry into my private affairs."

"I know. Because you were once convicted at Lucca of using a knife--eh?

I recollect quite well that affair--a love affair, was it not?"

"Yes, Signor Commendatore. But I was a youth then--a mere boy."

"Then tell me the circ.u.mstances In which Armida has disappeared," I urged, for I saw quite plainly that his sudden meeting with me had upset him, and that he was trying to hold back from me some story which he was bursting to tell.

"Well, signore," he said at last in a low tone of confidence, "I don't like to trouble you with my private affairs after those untruths I told you when we last met."

"Go on," I said. "Tell me the truth."

After the exciting incidents of our last meeting, I was half inclined to doubt him.

"The truth is, Signor Commendatore, that my wife has mysteriously disappeared. Last Sat.u.r.day, at eleven o'clock, she was talking over the garden wall with a neighbor and was then dressed to go out. She apparently went out, but from that moment no one has seen or heard of her."

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him the ghastly truth, yet so strange was the circ.u.mstance that his own double, even to the mole upon his face, should be lying dead and buried in Scotland that I hesitated to relate what I knew.

"She spoke English, I suppose?"

"She could make herself understood very well," he said with a sigh, and I saw a heavy, thoughtful look upon his brow. That he was really devoted to her, I knew. With the Italian of whatever station in life, love is all-consuming--it is either perfect love or genuine hatred. The Tuscan character is one of two extremes.

I glanced across the road, and saw that the detective who had ordered his chop and coffee had stopped to light his pipe and was watching us.