"She certainly didn't come to see me," I protested. "She came to see the stranger--she's a friend of the dead man's."

He turned, knit his brows, and stared straight into my face.

"A friend of Ma.s.sari's! Who told you so?"

"She did."

Sammy smiled incredulously. He was a man who had pa.s.sed through life having singularly escaped all the shadows that lie on it for most men; and he had far more than most what may be termed the faculty for happiness.

"H'm. Depend upon it she came here more on your account than to visit the mysterious Italian."

"But she saw Miss Gilbert and asked for Ma.s.sari!" I exclaimed. "It was Miss Gilbert who called me and introduced me. I took her up to the dead man's room, and the sight of him was a terrible shock to her. She's not exactly his friend; more his enemy, I think."

"How could she know Ma.s.sari was here, pray?"

"Ah! I don't know that. The Italian was probably followed here after his arrival at Charing Cross."

"Did she explain why the fellow came here?"

"Yes, she told me various things that have utterly stupefied me," I answered. "She hints that the Italian and the woman Ina Hardwick were in league to take my life."

"Your life?" he cried. "What absurd romance has she been telling you?

Why you didn't know Ma.s.sari until yesterday!"

"That's just it. But nevertheless there's some truth in what she alleges. Of that I'm quite convinced."

"Why?"

"For several reasons. One is because she is aware of one curious incident in my life, one of which even you, Sammy, are in ignorance. It is my secret, and I thought none knew it. Yet Ma.s.sari was aware of it, and she also knows something about it, although, fortunately, not the whole of the details."

Sammy twisted his small, fair moustache, and was puzzled.

"She actually knows a secret of yours, eh? Then depend upon it she intends to profit by it. Be careful of her, that's all, G.o.dfrey. She may have known Ma.s.sari, for she's mixed up with a very queer lot. But it's quite evident that she came really to see you. Did she enlist your sympathies in any way; did she ask you to do anything for her--any service, I mean?"

For a few moments I hesitated; then, in order to further convince him, I told him all that had occurred, and repeated her strange story of how the man we knew as Ma.s.sari had refused to tell the truth and liberate her.

"He probably had sufficient reason," declared Sammy, in a hard voice, quite unusual to him. "The truth, however, is quite plain. She has spread out her net for you, and you bid fair to fall an easy prey, old fellow."

"But, my dear chap, I'm pretty wary. Remember I'm thirty-two and am past the adolescence of youth."

"She's uncommonly good-looking. You've told me so yourself. Admiration is the first stage always," he sneered.

"But tell me what you know of her," I urged. "Where did you first come across her?"

"At Enghien, just outside Paris, nearly three years ago. They lived in a rather fine villa, the grounds of which went down to the lake. You know Enghien--a gay little place, with pretty villas and a casino on the lake. Brunet, the dramatic critic of the _Temps_, introduced her father to me in the American bar at the Grand, and he invited me to go down to his place and dine. I did so, and found several other male guests, men of the smartest sporting set in Paris--mostly Frenchmen. At first I believed Mr Miller was a person of means, but one day a man who said he had known him, told me that he was a `crook'. I admit I could not discover what was the source of his income. I only knew that his friends were mostly rich racing men and _chevaliers d'industrie_, and that he frequently gave very delightful dinners. Though she never dined with her father's friends, Lucie was often to be seen. She seemed then to be a mere slip of a girl of nineteen or so, extremely pretty, with her dark hair dressed low and tied with a broad bow of black ribbon.

The men who frequented the place always addressed her as `_Bebe_,' and would sometimes take her boxes of chocolate. One evening after dinner somebody suggested a hand at cards, when suddenly I caught Miller doing a trick, and I stood up and openly denounced him. It may have been foolish of me, but I spoke without reflecting. He denied my accusation fiercely, and was supported by his friends. Therefore I took my hat and left the house, now convinced that the fellow was a `crook'. After that I made inquiries about him of a man who had been in the Paris _surete_ whom I know very well, with the result that I found the Englishman enjoyed half a dozen aliases and was undoubtedly a queer character. His a.s.sociates were mostly persons known to the police. Even his butler at the villa was a man who had `done' five years for burglary. The theory of my friend, the ex-detective, was that he was allied with a gang of international thieves, those clever gentry of means who operate in the princ.i.p.al cities throughout Europe, and who are so ingenious that they in most cases outwit the police. Though there was not sufficient evidence to justify any direct allegation it was strongly suspected that the source of Mr Miller's wealth at that moment was the proceeds of a very cleverly planned robbery at the Commercial Bank in Bordeaux. When I told my friend how I had denounced Miller's trick, he looked grave and said: `That was very injudicious. Those people might seek revenge.' I laughed in derision, but he was so serious, and so strongly urged me to be careful, that I began to repent my boldness in making the charge.

Miller and his friends were, so my friend told me, a dangerous lot."

"But if Lucie has the misfortune to have a father who is a scoundrel, it surely is no reason why she herself should be bad?" I remarked.

"You can't touch pitch without being soiled, my dear fellow. Think of the life of a young girl among such a crowd as that! Ah! you've never seen them--you can have no idea what they're like."

"But what direct charge do you allege against her?" I asked. "Speak quite plainly, for I'm neither her friend nor her enemy. She has to-day told me certain things that have held me bewildered, and naturally I'm all curiosity to ascertain something concerning her."

"Well," he said, casting himself again into the big chair and smoking vigorously, "it was like this. One day about a month afterwards there came to stay with me at the Continental a wealthy young Chilian, Manuel Carrera by name, whom I had first met when, two years before, we had fought side by side in the streets of Valparaiso during the revolution.

He and I were partisans of the Government, of which his father was Minister of the Interior. Now that the Government had been restored he occupied a very important post in the Treasury, and had come to Paris to transact some business with the Banque de France. At first we were together every evening, and very often the greater part of the day, but of a sudden he seemed to prefer to go about Paris alone, for he had, he told me, met some other friends. For a fortnight or so I had very little of his company; but one afternoon he surprised me by saying that he was going down to Enghien to make a call. I offered to accompany him, saying that I could amuse myself at a cafe while he was calling, and that we might afterwards dine together at the Casino. Truth to tell, I had not been to Enghien since that well-remembered night, and I wanted to see whether the Villa du Lac was still occupied. To my surprise, his destination proved to be that very villa. He left me and entered the big gates before I had time to warn him of Miller, therefore I turned on my heel and took a cab to the cafe of the Casino situated on the opposite sh.o.r.e of the lake. Where I sat, at one of the little `tin'

tables beneath the trees, the water stretched before me, and beyond a green, well-kept lawn and the big white villa were shining through the trees. I lit a cigar and sat wondering. Suddenly across the lawn I saw two figures strolling slowly. One was a slim young girl in a white muslin dress girdled with pale blue, her companion a man in grey flannels and a panama. Then the truth was plain. My friend had fallen in love with Lucie Miller. His frequent absences were thus accounted for. I watched them as they sat together upon the garden seat facing the lake, and saw that he was telling her something to which she was listening very attentively, her head bowed as though in deep emotion.

Was he declaring his love, I wondered? For fully half an hour they sat there, when at last he rose, threw off his coat, and then both stepping into the boat at the bottom of the lawn he slowly rowed her away up the lake until behind the island they pa.s.sed from my sight."

Sammy was silent, thinking deeply. A sigh escaped him.

"And then?"

"What happened immediately afterwards will probably never be known," he said, in a hard, hoa.r.s.e voice. "I only know that somewhere about nine o'clock that same evening Carrera's despatch-box in his room at the Continental was opened with its proper key, and Chilian Government securities which he had only that day redeemed from the bank and intended to carry back to Valparaiso as well as a lot of negotiable bonds were all abstracted, together with a large sum in French bank-notes--the value altogether being about eighty thousand pounds. At midnight the poor fellow lay in the same room with a bullet in his brain. He realised how he had been tricked; how the key had been taken from his jacket pocket while he had taken the fair Lucie out upon the lake, and in a fit of chagrin and despair he took his revolver and ended his life."

"He committed suicide!" I gasped. "Didn't you see him after he went out upon the lake; didn't you warn him?"

"No. I meant to. But, alas! I was too late. I waited an hour at the Casino; then returned to Paris; and imagine my horror when I discovered next morning what had happened."

"What did you do?"

"I went at once to the Prefecture of Police and gave information. With three detectives I went down to Enghien, but we found the Villa du Lac uninhabited. The mysterious Mr Miller and his pretty daughter had already flown. That was three years ago, and from that afternoon until half an hour ago I have never set eyes upon the dark-eyed girl who so cleverly a.s.sisted her father in his ingenious schemes."

"But are you sure she is the same?" I asked. "You admit that she has changed."

"She has. She's grown more beautiful, but she is the same, my dear fellow--the same. Is it any wonder that I hate her?"

CHAPTER SIX.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE STRANGER.

I sat staring at my friend, unable to utter a word.

In the past twenty-four hours, through no fault or seeking of my own, I had suddenly been plunged into a maze of mystery, and there had been revealed to me a grave personal peril of which I had been in utter ignorance.

What the sweet, open-faced girl had divulged to me had caused me much amazement, yet this extraordinary story of Sammy's was utterly dumbfounding. I could not bring myself to believe that the girl who had so simply confessed to me her distress had wilfully a.s.sisted her father in robbing young Carrera, thereby causing him to take his life. To me it was utterly incredible.

Yet the fact that she had any connection with the mysterious Italian now lying dead above caused me to ponder. She knew the secret of that incident in quiet old Pisa. Yes. She was a mystery.

Had she told me the actual truth? That was the question which greatly puzzled me.

Through the following day and the next when, with Sammy, I followed the Italian to his lonely grave at Highgate, I recalled every incident of that strange sequence of circ.u.mstances, and longed again to see and question her.

Sammy, with that easy irresponsibility which was one of his chief characteristics, declared that Lucie, for obvious reasons, would not show herself again. But, on the other hand, I argued that if his allegation that she had come to Granville Gardens in order to meet me were correct, then she would return. She had, I pointed out, no suspicion that he was there and had recognised her. Therefore there was nothing to prevent her seeking me.

The whole circ.u.mstances were both romantic and puzzling.

The very man who she had alleged had plotted with the woman Hardwick against me had entrusted his most valuable possessions to me. Why? Had the small kindness I had shown him turned his heart towards me?

Certainly he had paid me for my services--the sum of two hundred pounds.