"But I packed it myself," said Mr. Redmayne. "The diary was bound exactly as this blank volume is bound, yet it is certain that I made no mistake, for I opened my brother's log and read a page or two before completing the parcel."

"He had bought a new diary only the last time he was in Dartmouth,"

said Doria. "I remember the incident. I asked him what he was going to put into the book, and he said that his log was just running out and he needed a new volume."

"You are sure that you did not mistake the old, full book for the new, empty one, Albert?" asked his friend.

"I cannot be positive, of course, but I feel no shadow of doubt in my own mind."

"Then the one has been subst.i.tuted for the other by somebody else.

That is a very interesting fact, if true."

"Impossible," declared Jenny. "There was n.o.body to do such a thing, Mr. Ganns. Who could have felt any interest in poor Uncle Bendigo's diary but ourselves?"

Mr. Ganns considered.

"The answer to that question might save us a very great deal of trouble," he said. "But there may be no answer. Your uncle may be mistaken. On the other hand I have never known him to be mistaken over any question involving a book."

He took up the empty volume and turned its pages; then Brendon declared they must be going.

"I'm afraid we're keeping Mr. Redmayne out of bed, Ganns," he hinted. "Our kits have already been sent to the hotel and as we've got a mile to walk, we'd better be moving. Are you never sleepy?"

He turned to Jenny.

"I don't believe he has closed his eyes since we left England, Mrs.

Doria."

But Peter did not laugh: he appeared to be deep in thought. Suddenly he spoke and surprised them.

"I'm afraid you're going to find me the sort of friend that sticketh closer than a brother, Albert. In a word, somebody must go to the hotel and bring back my travelling grip, for I'm not going to lose sight of you again till we've got this thing straightened out."

Mr. Redmayne was delighted.

"How like you, Peter--how typical of your att.i.tude! You shall not leave me, dear friend. You shall sleep in the apartment next my own.

It contains many books, but there shall be my great couch moved from my own bedroom and set up there in half an hour. It is as comfortable as a bed."

He turned to his niece.

"Seek a.s.sunta and Ernesto and set the apartment in order for Mr.

Ganns, Jenny; and you, Giuseppe, will take Mr. Brendon to the Hotel Victoria and bring back Peter's luggage."

Jenny hastened to do her uncle's bidding, while Brendon made his farewell and promised to return at an early hour on the following morning.

"My plans for to-morrow," said Peter, "subject to Mark's approval, are these. I suggest that Signor Doria should take Brendon to the scene in the hills where Robert Redmayne appeared; while, by her leave, I have a talk with Mrs. Jenny here. I'm going to run her over a bit of the past and she must be brave and give me all her attention."

He started and listened, his ear c.o.c.ked toward the lake.

"What's that shindy?" he asked. "Sounds like distant cannon."

Doria laughed.

"Only the summer thunder on the mountains, signor," he answered.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SUDDEN RETURN TO ENGLAND

A successful detective needs, above all else, the power to see both sides of any problem as it affects those involved in it. Nine times out of ten there is but one side; yet men have often gone to the gallows because their fellow men failed in this particular--followed the line of least resistance and pursued the obvious and patent conclusions to an end only logical upon a false premise.

Peter Ganns did not lack this perspicuity. It was visible in his big face to any student of physiognomy. He smiled with his mouth, but his eyes were grave--never ironical, never satirical, but always set in a stern, not unkindly expression. They were watchful yet tolerant--the eyes of one versed in the weakness as well as the n.o.bility of human nature. He could measure the average, modest intelligence of his fellow creatures as well as estimate the heights of genius to which man's intellect may sometimes attain. His own unusual powers, centred in sound judgment of character and wide experience of the human comedy, had set the seal in his eyes while graving something like a smile upon his full, Egyptian lips.

He sat next day and spoke to Albert Redmayne on a little gallery that extended from the dining-room of the villa and overhung the lake. Here, for half an hour, he talked and listened until Jenny should be ready for him.

The elder expounded his simple philosophy.

"I was long out of heart with G.o.d, while striving to keep my faith in man, Peter," he declared. "But now I see more clearly and believe that it is only by faith in our Maker that we can understand ourselves. 'Better' is ever the enemy of 'good,' and 'best' is a golden word only to be used for martyrs and heroes."

"Men do their best for two things, Albert," replied Mr. Ganns. "For love and for hate; and without these tremendous incitements not the least or greatest among us can reach the limit of his powers."

"True, and perhaps that explains the present European att.i.tude. The war has left us incapable of any supreme activity. Enthusiasm is dead; consequently the enthusiasm of good-will lacks from our councils and we drift, without any great guiding hand upon the tiller of destiny. Heart and brains are at odds, groping on different roads instead of advancing together by the one and only road. We see no great men. There are, of course, leaders, great by contrast with those they lead; but history will declare us a generation of dwarfs and show how, for once, man stood at a crisis of his destiny when those mighty enough to face it failed to appear.

Now that is a situation unparalleled in my knowledge of the past.

Until now, the hour has always brought the man."

"We drift, as you say," answered Ganns, dusting his white waistcoat.

"We are suffering from a sort of universal sh.e.l.l shock, Albert; and from my angle of observation I perceive how closely crime depends upon nerves. Indifference in the educated takes the shape of lawlessness in the ma.s.ses; and the breakdown of our economical laws provokes to fury and despair. Our equilibrium is gone in every direction. For example the balance between work and recreation has been destroyed. This restless condition will take a decade of years to control, and the present craving for that excitement, to which we were painfully accustomed during the years of war, is leaving a marked and dangerous brand on the minds of the rising generation.

From this restlessness to criminal methods of satisfying it is but a step.

"We are sick; our state is pathological. What we need is a renewal of the discipline that enabled us to confront and conquer in the past struggle. We must drill our nerves, Albert, and strive to restore a balanced and healthy outlook for those destined to run the world in future. Men are not by nature lawless. They are rational beings in the lump; but civilization, depending as it does on creed and greed, has made no steps as yet, through education, to arrest our superst.i.tion and selfishness."

"Once let the light of good-will in upon this chaos and we should see order beginning to return," declared Mr. Redmayne. "The problem is how to promote good-will, my dear friend. This should be the great and primal concern of religion; for what, after all, is the basis of all morality? Surely to love our neighbour as ourself."

They set the world right together and their thoughts drifted into a region of benignant aspirations. Then came Jenny and presently the detective followed her into a garden of flowers behind Villa Pianezzo.

"Giuseppe and Mr. Brendon have gone to the hills," she said. "And now I am ready to talk to you, Mr. Ganns. Don't fear to hurt me. I am beyond hurting. I have suffered more in the past year than I should have thought it possible to suffer and keep sane."

He looked at her beautiful face intently. It was certainly sad enough, but to his eye, beneath the lines of sorrow, lay an anxiety that concerned neither the past nor the future, but the immediate present. She was apparently unhappy in her new life.

"Show me the silkworms," he said.

They entered the lofty shed rising above a thicket behind the villa--a shuttered apartment where twilight reigned. The place was fitted with shelves to the ceiling and between the caterpillar trays tall branches of brushwood ascended to the roof. Out of the cool gloom of this silent chamber there glimmered, as it seemed, a thousand little lamps dotted everywhere on the sticks and walls and ceiling. Not a place where a worm could climb or spin was unadorned, for the oval, shining coc.o.o.ns, scattered like small, ripe fruit upon the twigs, made a delicate light on every side through the sombre dusk. Mr. Redmayne's silkworms were descended, through countless generations, from those historic eggs stolen by Nestorian pilgrims from China, and carried thence secretly in hollow canes to Constantinople some thirteen hundred years before.

The caterpillars had nearly all done their work and completed their silken cases; but a couple of hundred, fat, white monsters, each some three inches long, still remained in the trays, and they fastened greedily on fresh mulberry leaves that Jenny brought them.

Others were but beginning their shrouds. They had sketched them and appeared to be busily weaving in the preliminary bag made of transparent and glittering filament. A few of the creatures began to turn yellow, though as yet they had not devoured their last meal.

Jenny picked them up and held them to the morning light.