Читать книгу The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias - William Le Queux - Страница 12

Life has no labyrinth but one’s steps can track it, and mind acts on mind though bodies be far divided.

Following the strange sensation that crept upon me while examining that half-faded, uneven screed came a complete blank. My muscles were paralysed, my breathing difficult, my throat contracted, and my manhood’s energy utterly sapped, until I was helpless as a child. It seemed as though the unseen power had touched me with the finger of death, and I had withered and fallen.

Yet slowly and painfully I struggled back to a sense of my hapless position, and on opening my eyes, sore in their sockets, I found, to my amazement, that I was lying in a heap on the carpet beside my overturned chair, my head close to the carved leg of my writing-table. The light dazzled me, and I quickly became aware that I was lying full in the morning sunshine which streamed in at the open window.

I had fallen from my chair and remained insensible the whole night. Nello had not discovered me, as I had dismissed him, wishing to be alone.

In Tuscany it is light early in summer, and the July sun soon gathers power. I glanced at the clock, and saw that it was already a quarter to five.

Outside, a fisherman was singing a gay song as he unloaded his boat, and children were already shouting as they bathed in the sunlit water; but the brightness in the world beyond only jarred upon me, soured and embittered man that I was. Could that curious sensation be a precursory sign of some terrible malady—epilepsy or paralysis, perhaps?

I struggled to my feet and stood beside the table, dazed, unbalanced, and so weak of limb that my legs could scarcely bear me. I felt as though I had just risen from a sick-bed after months of suffering.

The book lay open at the final page whereon the writer of the record, Godfrey Lovel, had inscribed his name and date as already reproduced here. My thoughts ran back to the moment when I had experienced that sudden seizure, and I recollected how interested I had been in the few lines I had succeeded in deciphering.

The unmistakable paralysis that had stricken me down at the very moment my curiosity was aroused was certainly alarming, and even mysterious, especially after the prior’s hints as to the evil that would pursue me if I determined to continue in possession of that fine old volume.

The fat priest’s words recurred to me with a deep and hidden meaning, and I admit that my spirit was mightily disturbed. It seemed that I had raised a foe where I might have won a friend.

I locked the book away in my safe, and went forth upon the balcony and breathed the fresh air of morning. Across the sparkling waters of the tideless sea the islands stood grey and mysterious in the blue haze, Gorgona, peopled only by its convict-gangs, showing most distinctly of all. A veil of mystery seemed to have fallen upon everything—upon all save a mighty battleship, with black smoke belching from her three yellow funnels and flying the white ensign of England as she approached an anchorage outside the port.

A desire for fresh air seized me; therefore, feeling faint, I took a liqueur glass of neat brandy, and then descended to the big marble entrance-hall that always echoed so dismally to my lonely footsteps. Recollect that I was a man without kith or kin, self-exiled for private reasons over which I had been unable to exercise control, and although living among a people that I loved because of their sympathy and charm, I was yet homesick for England and suffering from the nostalgia that those whose lot it is to spend their lives abroad know, alas! too well.

Outside I took the old sea-road—that shadeless road that runs with so many windings away along the edge of the deadly Maremma and on to Rome. I walked it often, for it led out along the edge of the brown cliffs through a wild and uninhabited tract of country, a district which until ten years ago had been dangerous on account of a band of lawless brigands. The latter had, however, all been exterminated by the carabineers, and the loneliness of the country suited well my frame of mind.

I met no one save an old barefooted fishwife whom I knew, trudging onward with her basket poised on her head. So I lit my pipe and gave myself up to reflection, trying to account for my strange seizure. I hesitated to consult a doctor, for I entertained an Englishman’s want of faith in the Italian medico. I longed to be able to consult my own doctor in London, and ask his opinion whether the strange stupor were an actual warning.

Although Italy possesses such distinct charm; although Tuscany was the home of my youth; although I had hosts of friends among the fishermen and honest contadini about me; although my friends at the white old monastery away among the olives on the side of the Black Mountain were always warm in their welcome and eager to render me the very smallest and humblest service, yet I was suddenly tired of it all. Sweet as were the pleasures of Tuscany, as Byron, Shelley, Smollett, and George Eliot had found, yet I was English, and England was my home.

I threw myself down on the grass of the cliff-top and thought it all out. Through seven long years I had led that life of utter loneliness, returning to London only for a fortnight or so each year, and then sadly leaving Charing Cross again for another twelve months of exile. I had my work, the writing of romance, to absorb my attention, it was true; but the writer of novels must live in congenial surroundings, otherwise the influence of a solitary life must show in his work.

Letters I had received from home during the past few days showed, too, that there was really no further reason why I should not return and live in England among my friends; therefore, after long reflection and carefully considering the whole question, I at length made up my mind to pack up my collection of pictures, old furniture, manuscripts, and antiques, and remove them to some country home in England.

I have a habit of acting with precipitation. My father, full of old-fashioned caution, used to chide me for it. In his day there was no such thing as smartness. But in the profession, as in business, old-fashioned stolidity has now passed away. Today, if one sees the legend, “Established 1792,” over a shop, one avoids it, knowing that its proprietor is not content with up-to-date small profits. Time was when the solid professional or business man was as black-coated and serious as an undertaker; but it is all of the past. The smart, speculative man, who acts promptly and has the courage of his own convictions, is the man who succeeds in the present scramble for daily bread. In every walk of life one must keep abreast of the flood; hence, with my mind made up, I entered the consulate at eleven o’clock and announced my immediate departure to my old friend and confidant, Jack Hutchinson, one of the most popular of his Majesty’s representatives abroad, and whose name with every skipper up and down the Mediterranean is synonymous with geniality of manner and kindliness of heart.

When I sank into a chair in his private room and announced to him that I was going his face fell. I knew well that he had no other English friend there, and my departure would leave him utterly alone. He was an exile, like myself; only, there was for him a comfortable pension at the end of it.

“Well,” he exclaimed after a moment, “I’m awfully sorry you’re going, my dear old fellow—awfully sorry. But I think you are acting wisely. You’ve been here too long, and have grown misanthropic. A little London life will take you out of yourself. Besides, of late you’ve been working far too hard.”

I told him of my strange seizure; and, having heard me, he said:

“Exactly. Just what I expected. Pellegrini, the doctor, feared a collapse, and told me so weeks ago. That I’m very sorry to lose you, old chap, you know too well. But you’ll be better in England. You’re homesick, and that never does in Italy, you know. I and my wife both were so when I was first appointed here twelve years ago; but we’ve got over it—you never have.” Then he added: “By the way, have you seen old Graniani today? He stopped me half an hour ago in the Corso Umberto and asked if I had seen you this morning.”

It was on the point of my tongue to tell Hutchinson all that had passed in Florence on the previous day, but I thought it useless to trouble him with what seemed but vague suspicions.

“Why does he want to see me?” I inquired.

“Oh, he has got something or other to sell you, I suppose,” was the consul’s reply. “Somehow, Kennedy, I don’t like the old fellow. Whether it’s his ugliness, his deformity, or his manner, I can’t tell; only, I instinctively dislike him—and more than ever when I met him just now.”

“Why?”

“Well, to me his manner was as though he expected to hear some grave news regarding you.”

“Grave news?” I echoed. Then it occurred to me that the old hunchback was, of course, privy to the mysterious evil following the possession of the “Book of Arnoldus.”

“What grave news did he expect?”

“How do I know, my dear fellow? These Italians, and especially men of his class, are so subtle and cunning that you can never get at the bottom of their motives.”

“But I’ve always given Graniani his price—with a little bargaining, of course. Why, I’ve paid him hundreds of francs. You recollect what I paid for that miniature of the missing dauphin of France?”

“But you obtained a gem, even though you had to pay heavily for it,” was my friend’s answer. “If it had been in old Confessini’s hands you’d have had to pay double, or he would have sent it to London.”

“I know that,” I laughed. “Graniani has had some good things now and then, and I’ve been a good customer; therefore I can’t see why he should entertain any hostile thought towards me.”

“As I’ve already said, you never know the Italian character. The man who is your best friend today will be your worst enemy tomorrow. That’s what makes life so insecure here and affrays with the knife so frequent. All I can say is that I noticed about the old scoundrel a distinct expectation to hear bad news of you, and I judged from his manner that he was disappointed when I told him that for aught I knew you were all right. If I were you I wouldn’t have any more dealings with him. Now you’re leaving Antignano, cut him. He has served your purpose well, and you can’t afford to be mixed up in any quarrel with a man of his stamp.”

“Yes, I will,” I answered. “I don’t like him myself. Of late he has been far from straight.”

“And of late, it seems, he has been making secret inquiries of one of the Italian clerks here about your antecedents in England.”

“Whatever for? How can my antecedents concern him?”

“Ah, that’s the point, my dear Kennedy. He’s forming some ingenious plot or other; therefore we must be on the alert. When a man bribes one of the clerks to obtain information about an Englishman’s past, his parentage, and all the rest of it, there’s something devilish suspicious about it.”

“I should think so! I wonder what the old scoundrel is up to?”

“Some blackmailing business or other, most probably. If so, act with discretion, and we’ll have a chat with the chief of police. The present questore is terribly down on blackmailers.”

“But what can be the motive?”

“That’s more than either of us can tell. We must watch and form our own conclusions,” was the consul’s reply, leaning back in his white linen suit and stretching his arms above his head. “You see now,” he added, “why I am in favour of your leaving Tuscany without delay.”

“Yes, I see. But there’s some mystery about old Graniani, and we ought to clear it up.”

“Why should we trouble to do so?” he asked.

I had told him nothing about the incident which had occurred to arouse my suspicions while I was waiting for the fat prior of San Sisto; therefore, in a few words I briefly recounted what I had witnessed.

“Strange?” he exclaimed. “Remarkably strange! We must watch him, Kennedy. It almost looks as if, for some mysterious reason, he means mischief.”

We agreed as to this, and then fell to discussing the best means by which I might get rid of my house and have my collection of antiques packed for transmission to England.

Soon after noon I returned home to luncheon, and in crossing the Piazza Vittorio Emanuelle to take the electric tram my eyes caught a glimpse of a neat female figure in black, which struck me as strangely similar to that of the dark-eyed woman who had been closeted with the fat prior in Florence on the previous day. My first impulse was to turn and follow her, but not being sufficiently certain of her identity, I stepped upon the tram, although sorely puzzled. Was she in Leghorn for some secret purpose? I wondered. Somehow I felt convinced it was she.

On my arrival home, however, my suspicion became more than ever aroused, for I found old Nello in a terrible state of anxiety. On getting up he had discovered that my bed had not been slept in, and that I was absent. Being Italian, he feared that some disgrazia had happened to me.

Then, when I assured him that I had merely been out for a long walk instead of sleeping, he said:

“The hunchback antique-dealer is awaiting you, signore. He says it is most important that he should see you, so I have shown him upstairs to the study.”

His announcement took me aback. The old scoundrel was the last visitor I expected. Nevertheless, I drew a long breath to steady my nerves, and with calm resolution mounted the stairs.