After a meal and a pipe he made his plan and presently stood again on the rough ground beneath the cliffs, where he had pretended so realistically to perish. He intended no attempt to arrest; but, having created the effigy of himself and stuffed his knickerbockers and coat to resemble nature and deceive anybody who might return in darkness to his corpse, Brendon found a hiding-place near enough to study what would happen. He expected Redmayne to return and guessed that another would return with him. His hope was to recognize the accomplice and prove at least whether Jenny was right in hinting her husband's secret wickedness, or whether Doria had justly accused her of collusion with the unknown. It was impossible that both were speaking the truth.

With infinite satisfaction he heard Giuseppe's voice, and even an element of grim amus.e.m.e.nt attended the Italian's shock and his subsequent snipe-like antics as he leaped to safety before an antic.i.p.ated revolver barrage.

The adventure told Brendon much and his first inclination was to arrest Doria on the following morning; but that desire swiftly pa.s.sed. A surer strategy presented itself. From the first ambition--to get Jenny's husband under lock and key--his mind leaped to a more workmanlike proposition. He suspected, however, that Giuseppe might take the initiative and deny him any further opportunity of bettering their acquaintance; and that night as he fell asleep with an aching shin and cheek, Mark endeavoured to consider the situation as it must appear from Doria's angle of vision. Much temporal comfort resulted for him from this examination.

It seemed clear that Doria and Redmayne were working to destroy Albert Redmayne for their common advantage. Let the old book lover disappear and Robert and his niece would be the last of the Redmaynes to share the fortune of the vanished brothers. Robert, indeed, could have no open part in these advantages, for he was outlawed; but it would be possible for him, in process of time, when Jenny inherited all three estates and Robert, Bendigo and Albert were alike held to be deceased in the eyes of the law, to share the fortune in secret with his niece and her husband. This view explained the prescience of Peter Ganns and his surprise that Albert Redmayne should still be in the land of the living. Ganns, however, was proved mistaken in one vital particular, for there could no longer be any reasonable doubt that Robert Redmayne still lived.

Utterly mistaken as Brendon's theories ultimately proved to be, they bore to his weary brain the stamp of truth and he next proceeded to consider Doria's future att.i.tude before the problem now awaiting him and his companion in crime. Doria could not be sure that he had been recognized or even seen when approaching the supposed corpse of Redmayne's victim; and, in any case, under the darkness, no man might certainly swear that it was Doria who came to dig the grave and dispose of the body. Brendon confessed to himself that only Giuseppe's startled oath had proved his presence, and Jenny's husband might well be expected to offer a sound alibi if arrested.

He judged, therefore, that Doria would deny any knowledge of the incident; and time proved that Mark was right enough in that prediction.

CHAPTER XV

A GHOST

The next morning, while he rubbed his bruises in a hot bath, Brendon determined upon a course of action. He proposed to tell Jenny and her husband exactly what had happened to him, merely concealing the end of the story.

He breakfasted, lighted his pipe and limped over to Villa Pianezzo.

He was not in reality very lame, but accentuated the stiffness. Only a.s.sunta appeared, though Brendon's eyes had marked Doria and Jenny together in the neighbourhood of the silkworm house as he entered the garden. He asked for Giuseppe and, having left Brendon in the sitting-room of the villa, a.s.sunta departed. Almost immediately afterward Jenny greeted him with evident pleasure but reproved him.

"We waited an hour for supper," she said, "then Giuseppe would wait no longer. I was beginning to get frightened and I have been frightened all night. I am thankful to see you, for I feared something serious might have happened."

"Something serious did happen. I've got a strange story to tell. Is your husband within reach? He must hear it, too, I think. He may be in some danger as well as others."

She expressed impatience and shook her head.

"Can't you believe me? But of course you can't. Why should you?

Doria in danger! However, if you want him, you don't want me, Mark."

It was the first time that she had thus addressed him and his heart throbbed; but the temptation to confide in her lasted not a moment.

"On the contrary I want you both," he answered. "I attach very great weight to the hints you have given me--not only for my sake but for your own. The end is not yet as far as you're concerned, Jenny, for your welfare is more to me than anything else in the world--you know it. Trust me to prove that presently. But other things come first. I must do what I am here to do, before I am free to do what I long to do."

"I trust you--and only you," she said. "In all this bewilderment and misery, you are now the only steadfast rock to which I can cling.

Don't desert me, that's all that I ask."

"Never! All that's best in me shall be devoted to you, thankfully and proudly--now that you have wished it. Trust me, I say again.

Call your husband. I want to tell you both what happened to me yesterday."

Again she hesitated and gazed intently upon him.

"Are you sure that you are wise? Would Mr. Ganns like you to tell Doria anything?"

"You will judge better when you have heard me."

Again he longed to confide in her and show her that he understood the truth; but two considerations shut his mouth: the thought of Peter Ganns and the reflection that the more Jenny knew, the greater might be her own peril. This last conviction made him conclude their conference.

"Call him. We must not let him think that we have anything of a private nature to say to each other. It is vital that he should not imagine such a thing."

"You have secrets from me--though I have let you know my own secret," she murmured, preparing to obey him.

"If I keep anything from you, it is for your own good--for your own security," he replied.

She left him then and in a few moments returned with her husband. He was full of curiosity and under his usual a.s.sumption of cheerfulness Brendon perceived considerable anxiety.

"An adventure, Signor Marco? I know that without you telling me.

Your face is solemn as a raven and you walked stiffly as you came to the door. I saw you from the silkworms. What has happened?"

"I've had a squeak of my life," replied Mark, "and I've made a stupid mistake. You must pay all attention to what I'm going to tell you, Doria, for we can't say who is in danger now and who is not.

The shot that very nearly ended my career yesterday might just as easily have been aimed at you, had you been in my place."

"A shot? Not the red man? A smuggler perhaps? You may have stumbled upon some of them, and knowing no Italian--"

"It was Robert Redmayne who fired upon me and missed by a miracle."

Jenny uttered an exclamation of fear. "Thank G.o.d!" she said under her breath.

Then Brendon told the story in every detail and explained his own ruse. He related nothing but the truth--up to a certain point; but beyond that he described events that had not taken place.

"Having made the faked figure, I hid just before dusk fairly close to it intending, of course, to keep watch, for I was positive that the murderer, as he would suppose himself to be, must come back after dark to hide his work. But now ensued an awkward contretemps for which I had not provided. I found myself faint--so faint that I began to be alarmed. I had not eaten since the morning and the food and flask which I had brought with me were half a mile and more away. They remained, of course, where I had left them when I started to chase Redmayne. It was a choice between attempting to reach the food while I could do so, or stopping and growing chilled and every moment weaker.

"I am not made of iron and the day had been rather strenuous for me.

I was bruised and lame and utterly played out. I decided that I should have time to reach my food and return to my hiding-place before the moon rose. But it was not such an easy or speedy business as I had expected. It took me a long time to get back to the starting-place and when I did, a search was needed before I found my sandwiches and flask of Chianti. Never was a meal more welcome. I soon felt my strength returning and set off in half an hour on the journey back to the plateau.

"Then my troubles began. You'll think the wine got into my head and it may have done so; but at any rate I lost the path most effectually and presently lost myself. I began to despair and had very nearly given up any further attempt to return when, out of the trees, blinked the white face of the precipice under Griante's crown and I recognized the situation. Then I went slowly and silently forward and kept a sharp lookout.

"But I returned too late. Once back again, a glance at the dummy showed me that I had lost my chance. It had been handled. The trunk was in one place, the gra.s.s head, with my cap upon it, lay in another. One knew that no fox or other wild creature would have disturbed it thus.

"Dead silence hung over the spot; and now, half fearing an ambush in my turn, I waited an hour before emerging. Not a soul was there.

Redmayne had clearly come, discovered my escape and then departed again. Even in that moment I considered what I should have done had he confiscated my clothes! It would then have been necessary to tramp to my hotel in the white shirt and scanty underclothing which was all that remained to me. But now I donned my jacket and knickerbockers, cap and stockings and then prepared to depart.

"There was a smell of earth in the air--a reek of upturned mould; but what that may have been I cannot say. I soon started downhill and, presently, striking a path to the north, entered the chestnut woods and was at my hotel an hour after midnight. That is my story and I propose to-day to revisit the spot. I shall engage the local police who have orders to a.s.sist us--that is, unless you, Doria, can spare time to accompany me yourself. I would rather not ask them; but I do not go there again alone."

Jenny looked at her husband and waited to speak until he had done so. But Giuseppe appeared more interested at what had already happened to Brendon than in what was next to happen. He asked many questions, to which Mark was able to return true replies. Then he declared that he would certainly accompany the detective to the scene of his adventure.

"We will go armed this time," he said.

But Jenny protested.

"Mr. Brendon is not nearly well enough to climb there again to-day,"

she declared. "He is lame and must be feeling the effects of yesterday. I beg him not to attempt to go again so soon."

Doria said nothing but looked at Mark.

"I shall best lose my stiffness by another climb," he a.s.sured them.