It was fairly late that evening when Austin Starr arrived at Cacciola’s, having had a hasty meal at a restaurant when he was through with his day’s work.
He had been obliged to decline the maestro’s hospitable invitation to dinner, and had been assured by the old man that it did not matter how late he turned up: “I am not what the English call an early bird!”
Cacciola himself, arrayed in dressing-gown and slippers and carrying a big curved meerschaum pipe in his hand, admitted and welcomed him cordially.
There was no one else in the spacious sitting-room, but Austin’s quick sense of disappointment was speedily banished by his host.
“Sit down, my friend. You will find that chair comfortable. Now, will you have wine—it is here ready? Or wait for the coffee which my Maddelena will bring soon? She is now preparing it.”
“Coffee for me, thank you, sir.”
“And none makes it better than Maddelena,” said the old man, settling himself in his own great chair, and resuming his pipe. “It is well indeed for us all that she is at home at this time, for, alas! we are a sick household, with Boris and my poor old Giulia so much distressed by this terrible event, which touched us so nearly through our poor Boris.”
“It’s a great and awful mystery that I’d give my right hand to solve,” said Austin bluntly.
Cacciola looked at him with grave surprise.
“Say a tragedy, yes. But where is the mystery? There is no doubt of the guilt of that unhappy young man.”
“Doubt! Man alive, Roger Carling is as innocent as I am; I’d stake my life on that! He’s been committed for trial, I know—one couldn’t expect anything else at present—but——”
He checked himself. After all, he had come here in search of a clue, and must say nothing that might put Cacciola on his guard.
“Now that is strange,” mused Cacciola. “Maddelena has been saying the same ever since we returned from the court, simply because she has decided that he does not look like a murderer—a woman’s reason!”
“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your niece yet. Does she live with you, sir?”
“It is her home, and has been these many years, since my brother died and left her in my charge. She and my poor Boris are to me as children. But she has not been at home except for holidays since she went to school; she has been educated here in England, and since two years has been studying in Milan. She should be there now, the naughty one, but the moment she heard the news of this terrible thing she came back, travelling night and day. I was vexed, yes; with a musician, music should always come first, and her impulse will retard her career; but I do not know what we should have done without her. None can manage Boris and our old Giulia as Maddelena does,” he added with an indulgent smile.
“Is that so? She’s evidently a very capable as well as a very charming young lady. Is she a singer, sir?” said Austin, conscious of a curious sense of relief. What dark suspicions had been in his mind ever since he saw that fury of hatred in the girl’s face as she stood by Paula Rawson’s grave he had not dared to formulate, even in thought, but they had been there, and now Cacciola’s words had dispersed them so far as Maddelena was concerned. However much she hated the dead woman, she could have had no hand in her death.
Yet he was still convinced that here, in this quaint Bohemian household, the heart of the mystery was hidden. How was he to discover it? At present all he could do was to cultivate his friendship with the genial, simple-minded old maestro, whom he was learning to like immensely. At the back of his mind he was secretly ashamed of employing this plan. It was a low-down trick, yet the only course that seemed possible at present. And Roger Carling’s life was in the balance: that grim fact overshadowed all other considerations!
Cacciola shook his head and shrugged his shoulders with a whimsical air of resignation.
“Alas! no. She has a voice indeed which, compared with most English voices for instance, would pass as good. But a Cacciola who sings must excel, and my Maddelena will never excel——”
“As a singer! My uncle is on his old grievance,” said Maddelena herself, as she entered carrying the coffee-tray, and flashed an amused glance from one to the other.
“Aha! What is the proverb about listeners never hearing any good of themselves?” chuckled Cacciola. “This is my little girl, Mr. Starr; and if she had come an instant later she would have heard something nicer, for one of these days she is going to be a great violinist.”
“So my uncle says; but we shall see,” laughed Maddelena, setting the tray on a low, carved stand, and giving Austin her hand, and continuing more seriously: “I am so glad you have come to-night, Mr. Starr, for I have heard so much of you, and there are, oh, so many things I want to ask you about. You are a great friend of that poor Mr. Carling and his bride, are you not? The poor young lovers, how my heart is grieved for them! But we must have our coffee first and then we will talk.”
There was something so frank and charming in her manner, so like her uncle’s, in its easy, gracious simplicity, that again Austin marvelled, remembering her in that unguarded moment the other day. Was she merely a creature of passionate impulse or a consummate actress?
“I am very much the maid-of-all-work these days,” she explained, seating herself between them on a big “humpty.” “For Giulia—you know her?”
“Your old servant, yes, I have seen her.”
“She is still in such a state of nerves that she is no use at all. It is very foolish of her.”
“Have patience, carissima; she will get over it in time. We all shall,” said Cacciola soothingly.
“I suppose Mrs. Giulia was very fond of Lady Rawson?” hazarded Austin.
Maddelena turned towards him, raising her dark brows.
“Fond of her? No, indeed. Why should she be?”
“I don’t know. But I thought, as she seemed to be fairly intimate with you all——”
“Paula Rawson intimate with us!”
There was a note of indignant protest in her rich voice, and her eyes flashed stormily. Austin metaphorically “sat up,” and Cacciola cast a deprecating glance at the girl.
“I’m sorry if I’ve said anything wrong, Miss Maddelena; but it seems she did come here very frequently, so I naturally thought——”
“Come here, yes, indeed, and far too often,” said Maddelena with emphasis. “But not to see us. She came to see Boris, her cousin; not because she loved him—Paula Rawson was not capable of loving anyone—but because she wanted him as a tool for her ambitions, for her intrigues. She was ruining him, body and soul!”
Cacciola interposed, almost sternly: “Peace, Maddelena. We must speak with charity of the dead!”
“That is my uncle all over. Oh, yes, ‘speak with charity, think with charity!’ For me, I cannot, I will not, when I think of Paula Rawson. I am glad she is dead. If I made any other pretence I should be a hypocrite. This is the truth, Mr. Starr—my uncle knows it, though he will not say so now. We were so happy together, he and I and Boris, a year ago, when I came home from Milan for the winter vacation. You, who have only seen Boris as he is now, cannot imagine what he was then—what he was to us both. And his voice!”
“Ah! she is right,” sighed Cacciola. “It was divine, but the voice is there still, my child, the saints be praised, and when he recovers he will sing once more, better than ever perhaps, and be his old self once again.”
“Perhaps. Because Paula Rawson is dead and can trouble him no more,” cried Maddelena. “He met her, she whom he had thought dead, as would to heaven she had been—and, lo, we became as nothing to him: his voice, his career became as nothing! He lived only for her, to do her bidding, to see her from time to time; plotting for their country, they said. Pouff! He had forgotten his country until he met her—Paula—again, and fluttered round her like a moth round a candle, singeing his wings. Well, that candle has been put out, just in time to save him being burnt up!”
Cacciola shifted uneasily in his chair, but did not venture on further expostulation.
“Do you know any of their Russian friends, Miss Cacciola?” asked Austin.
She shook her head.
“They used to come and go like shadows, seeing only Boris, and whoever might chance to admit them when he did not—Giulia or my uncle usually. She—Paula—actually had a key, and could let herself into this, our home, if you please, whenever she liked. I was always furious about it, as was Giulia, and my uncle did not like it. He should have forbidden it, as I told him a hundred times.”
“She had a key!” exclaimed Austin. “Did she use it that last time she was here?”
“I do not know. Why do you ask?”
“Because if she did it ought to have been found either in her purse or her bag, and certainly it was not there.”
“That is curious,” said Maddelena reflectively. “I will find out from Giulia to-morrow; she is in bed now. You think that is of importance?”
“Every little thing is of importance. See, here, Miss Cacciola——”
“Well?” she asked, her bright eyes fixed inquiringly upon him, as he hesitated, wondering if, and how far, he should confide in her. Cacciola still remained silent but was listening intently.
“It’s this way,” Austin resumed slowly, weighing each word before he spoke. “Roger Carling is innocent. A good few of us—every one who really knows him, in fact, except Sir Robert Rawson himself—are convinced of that, although appearances are so terribly against him.”
“I too, since I watched him in the court to-day,” she murmured.
“I know. The maestro told me so just before you came in. Now we’ve got to find out the truth, to trace the murderer, before the trial comes on, and we’ve only a very few weeks to do it in. It’s no use going to the police, unless and until we’ve got something definite to put them on. They think the case is clear and their duty done.”
“But you—there is something in your mind?”
“There is, but I don’t quite know how to explain it. I believe this Russian business may provide the clue, and that you can help to find it. Just suppose there was one of them who had a personal grudge against her—or even a spy in their councils, for there always is a spy, sure, in these intrigues.”
“Or someone who wanted to separate her from Boris,” said Maddelena dryly, and he was thankful that she was now gazing at the fire and not at him. “Well, I and my uncle wanted to do that. He is sorry the separation has been brought about with such tragedy, but I—I care not how it came about so that it did come. I wonder you did not suspect me, Mr. Starr!”
She turned and looked at him again, a sort of challenge in her eyes, which he met squarely.
“Maddelena!” exclaimed Cacciola, glancing from one to the other, but neither heeded him at the moment.
“Perhaps I did till I met you,” Austin answered. “I don’t now, or I shouldn’t have asked your help.”
“Good! I like an honest man, and that is very honest, Mr. Starr. I also will be honest. I did not murder Paula Rawson, though there have been many times when I would have done so if I could. And I tell you that if I knew who did I would do all in my power to shield him.”
“But not if an innocent man should suffer in his place,” he urged. “Miss Cacciola, I implore you if you know anything—even if you suspect anything or anyone——”
“I neither know nor suspect anything,” she interrupted decisively. “I had not thought till to-day that there was any doubt. But you are right, the innocent must not suffer. I—we”—she glanced at her uncle—“will do all we can to help you.”
“What can we do?” asked Cacciola perplexedly. “I have heard you with much surprise, with much distress. I am grieved that Maddelena here is so hard; she knows it. It is not like her, signor, for she is truly a loving child.”
He looked so thoroughly upset and miserable that with one of her swift impulses Maddelena sprang up, and bent over the back of his chair, putting her arms caressingly round him.
“Never mind me, dear uncle. I love when I love and I hate when I hate; I am made like that, and it cannot be helped. But Mr. Starr is right: we must do what we can to bring the truth to light.”
“That’s so, Miss Cacciola. Now do either of you know the names of any of these Russians or where they live?”
“I do not, nor you, uncle? As I said, they came and went as they liked, and my uncle should have forbidden it; but he is so weak where Boris is concerned. And he is so sorry for them, as for all who are unfortunate.” She gave him another hug, and resumed her seat, continuing: “Do you know he used to give them food if he was at home and knew they were there with Boris, slinking in by one and two after dark? Well, he would bid Giulia make a good meal; and she did, grumbling. But she was never permitted to take in the dishes—no, nor even to peep into the room. Boris always came and took them from her!”
“What is a little food?” protested Cacciola. “I do not believe there is any harm in these poor souls; they are not Communists, but aristocrats who have escaped with their bare lives—whose lives are still perhaps in danger; and of one thing I am certain: not one of them would have lifted his hand against Paula—she was their best friend.”
“There may have been a spy among them for all that, as Mr. Starr suggested,” said Maddelena. “And I promise you that I will find out all I can about them. Boris will tell me, if I go to work in the right way.”
“I’m infinitely obliged to you, Miss Maddelena,” said Austin earnestly.
“And now let us talk of something pleasanter. Will you have some more coffee? Ah, it is cold! Some wine, then. That will make my uncle more cheerful. Will you move the coffee-tray, Mr. Starr? Set it on the piano—anywhere.”
He jumped up to do her bidding, while she crossed to the corner cupboard. Taking the tray from the little carved stand, he glanced round the room, and noting a small table near the door moved towards it.
As he did so he saw the door, on which hung a heavy embroidered portière, gently closing. Next instant he remembered that Maddelena had certainly shut the door after her when she entered; he had noticed the clever little backward kick with which she did so, and had heard the click of the latch. None of them had been anywhere near the door since. Who then was outside?
Striding swiftly across the room he dropped rather than set the tray on the table, sprang to the door and threw it wide open. The outer hall was dark and silent.
“Who is there?” he demanded, and at the same moment Maddelena called from the other side the room:
“What is the matter, Mr. Starr?”
“The door has been opened—someone has been listening,” he said, stepping warily into the darkness and feeling for the electric switch. “Where is that switch?”
“By the hall door, on the right,” said Maddelena, hurrying to him, while Cacciola followed more slowly, shuffling in his big slippers.
He switched the light on. The small, square hall was empty but for themselves. Maddelena passed swiftly along and switched on another light that illuminated the two passages at the end that ran right and left. No one there either.
“I shut the door when I came in,” she whispered.
“I know. I saw you,” he answered as softly.
“And I left the light on in the hall—I had both my hands full. It must have been either Boris or Giulia. Uncle, go and see if Boris is up. I will go to Giulia,” she said, motioning Austin to stay where he was.
He watched her go softly along the right-hand passage, open a door at the end, and switch on a light. From within the room, even at that distance, he could hear a sonorous snore.
Maddelena put out the light, closed Giulia’s door, and beckoned to Austin to join her.
“She is fast asleep; it could not have been she. I—I am frightened. Let us look in the other rooms.”
They did so; dining-room, kitchen, her own room—a charming one, next to Giulia’s. No one lurking there.
They went back and found Cacciola doing the same in the other wing, which once was a separate flat. He too looked very disturbed.
“Boris sleeps soundly, as he should do; he is under the doctor and had a sleeping draught to-night, and there is none other here but ourselves. Who can have been here?”
“I guess whoever it was has just walked out,” said Austin, striding back to the front door. “Why didn’t I think of that first?”
“Wait, the lights will be out there. Take my torch,” counselled Cacciola, fumbling for it in his overcoat pocket.
Softly all three of them went down all those flights of stone stairs. Still no sign of anyone, no sound. They themselves were evidently, and as usual, the only occupants of the block who were up so late; but the street door was open.
“That is proof,” whispered Maddelena. “It is always closed at eleven; after that we have to admit ourselves with our pass-key.”
“How many keys to this door have you?” asked Austin, after looking out into the night and closing the door, latching it this time.
“Only one—my uncle has it; and if others are late they must rouse the porter.”
“I wonder who has that missing key—the key you told me just now that Lady Rawson had, and lost,” said Austin, when they had returned to the drawing-room. “Take my advice, Mr. Cacciola, and have a new lock to your front door to-morrow. And don’t leave any spare keys around!”
“Is that all, Mr. Starr?”
“It’s something to go on, isn’t it?” Austin countered. He had decided to take counsel with Snell upon that problem he was endeavouring to solve, and the detective had listened in silence to his account of the interview with Cacciola and Maddelena, and the curious incident that had terminated it.
“Well, if you want my opinion,” said Snell dryly, “it is that you’ve discovered—or created—quite a nice little mare’s nest.”
“Now see here, Snell, you’re simply prejudiced!”
“Not at all, Mr. Starr. If there’s one thing I pride myself on more than another it is on never being prejudiced. And if you think I did not, at the very outset, satisfy myself—yes, and my superiors too—that neither Melikoff and his associates nor the old Signor and his household had anything at all to do with the murder of Lady Rawson, I can only assure you that you’re jolly well mistaken!”
“You’ve got it fixed up in your mind that Roger Carling is guilty, and you won’t look any further,” Austin said bitterly.
“I haven’t. It’s for a jury to decide whether he’s guilty or innocent. And if you or anyone else can point to any clue in any other direction that I haven’t followed up and sifted I’ll go to work again instantly. As for the Russians——” He touched an electric button on his table, scribbled a few words on a card, and handed it to the clerk who entered. “As you aren’t inclined to believe me, and as I know you’re to be trusted, I’m going to let you look through the dossiers for yourself. You mustn’t make any notes, of course.”
“That’s very good of you. But what about the person who was in the flat?”
“Old Madam Giulia—queer old girl too; what a fuss she made in the witness-box, even for a foreigner!—or perhaps even Melikoff himself, who thought he’d like to hear what you were all yarning about, and scooted as soon as you moved.”
“Impossible! Neither of them could have got down the long passage and into bed, apparently asleep, in the time. If I’d only thought of the hall door first we should have caught whoever it was. But I didn’t, and we never heard a sound. The tray clattered some as I set it down or I’d have heard the click of the lock. And what about that key that Melikoff gave Lady Rawson and she lost, or gave away?”
“That’s really the only point worth anything at all, and I doubt if it’s worth much. What a fool Melikoff was to give her that key, and the old signor to allow it. That the lot?”—as the clerk re-entered bringing several neatly arranged sets of papers. “All right, leave them for the present. Now, Mr. Starr, here you are. Take your time.”
He pushed the papers across the table to Austin, and resumed his own work.
Rapidly but methodically Austin ran through the dossiers one after another, his heart sinking as he did so. For Snell was right. They provided, with much other information, a complete record of the movements, on the day of the murder, of presumably every one of the group of refugees with whom Boris Melikoff was associated, compiled from personal interrogation of each and verified by further searching investigation. In the face of this no shadow of suspicion could fall on any one of them. Almost mechanically he memorized the names and addresses—one never knew when such information might come in useful.
“Well?” asked Snell laconically as he finished.
“You’re right, of course. I must say you’ve done the thing pretty thoroughly.”
“As usual. Though the public, and some people who might be expected to know better, don’t give us credit for it,” said Snell dryly. “It was easy enough in this case, as they’re all aliens and registered as such. We keep an eye on them all, as a matter of course, and we’ve known all there is to know about this lot ever since they landed. Quite a harmless lot, in my opinion.”
“Yet you didn’t know at the time that Lady Rawson was one of them,” suggested Austin. “You told me so yourself.”
“Quite so; but then she wasn’t registered—not necessary as she became ‘British’ on her marriage.”
“If their meetings were so harmless why did she steal those papers from her husband?”
“Ah, that’s quite another question, Mr. Starr. Her motive doesn’t matter in the least, so far as tracking her murderer is concerned; and if you hark back to the papers as a clue, why they lead straight to the one person—Mr. Roger Carling. And there you are!”
Austin leant his head on his hand in deep dejection.
“I’ll never believe it was Roger Carling!”
Snell glanced at him kindly enough.
“Take my advice, Mr. Starr, don’t go wearing yourself out trying to find fresh trails. They’ll all turn out as false as this one. The only thing to be done is to leave it to the jury—or to chance. I’ve known a lot of mysteries cleared up by what seemed to be pure chance.”
“There’s still the notion of a casual thief,” mused Austin.
“There is. And we’re keeping that in sight I assure you. But I don’t believe it was done by a wrong ’un down on his luck. Whoever it was wore gloves.”
“How in thunder do you know that?” demanded Austin, genuinely surprised.
“Because there were smears on the bag caused by gloved fingers. If they’d been finger prints they’d have been hanging evidence! There were no such smears on the envelope, though.”
“Any finger prints on it?” asked Austin quickly.
“Lots—from Carling’s own to Lord Warrington’s; it had been handled by half a dozen people at least—quite legitimately. Carling’s prints, of course—though they’re the clearest of the lot under the microscope—won’t be regarded as evidence against him, as he was the first to handle and seal the envelope the night before. All that will be threshed out at the trial.”
“I guess so. Well, I’m infinitely obliged to you, Mr. Snell,” said Austin despondently.
“Wish I’d been able to help you,” Snell responded as they shook hands.
Austin walked slowly along the Embankment in deep and distressed thought. This interview with Snell was a bitter disappointment; and now again he seemed up against a blank wall. There was still the mysterious visitant to the flat to be considered, but if he or she was traced that might prove nothing.
Outside Charing Cross Station he paused indecisively. He had an hour or two to spare. Should he go to Chelsea? He hadn’t seen Winnie for over a week—not since that day at the police court when Roger was committed for trial—as she had been singing at Bristol and only returned yesterday. Or should he go to Cacciola’s on the chance of finding anyone at home?
He would not acknowledge even in his own mind that by “anyone” he meant Maddelena. The girl attracted him most strongly, and in a manner that he did not choose to analyse. He did not love her—of that he was quite sure. He had never been of a susceptible nature where women were concerned; had always held to the high ideals of love and marriage derived from a long line of Puritan ancestors, for he came of a sound New English stock. He loved Winnie Winston; he meant to marry her; would have been profoundly indignant at any suggestion that he could waver in his allegiance to her.
And yet at intervals ever since he first saw Maddelena Cacciola beside Paula Rawson’s grave, and almost continuously since that evening when he had met and talked with her, that beautiful, vivid face, with its swift, passionate changes of expression, had haunted him, sleeping and waking, in a most perplexing and disturbing way!
He had not seen or spoken to her since, for though he had rung up several times, only Giulia had answered, to the effect that the signor and signorina were out.
As he turned into the station he tried to convince himself that he was going to Rivercourt Mansions merely to ascertain if the girl had been able to get any information from Boris, as she had undertaken to do, and not that he had any desire to meet her again; and all the time, at the back of his honest mind he was quite aware—and ashamed—of the subterfuge.
As he mounted the last of the long flights of stone stairs that led to Cacciola’s eyrie he heard music from within—a glorious tenor voice, pure, passionate, thrilling—singing to a masterly accompaniment of piano and violin.
Outside the door he waited, listening intently and in sheer delight, wishing, indeed, that he had been within; but it was unthinkable to intrude the strident impertinence of an electric bell on that feast of harmony.
The voice ceased. There followed a beautiful little ascending passage on the violin, which he strained his ears to hear, a final grand chord on the piano. Then silence. He touched the bell at last, and instantly the door was opened by Giulia, who beamed a welcome to him and whispered:
“They make music once more. Go in, signor.”
Thus informally, and unannounced, he entered the big room. Cacciola, seated at the piano, had swung round and was talking with eager animation to Boris and Maddelena, the girl still holding her violin.
As Austin entered she laid down the instrument and ran towards him, giving him both her hands in greeting.
“You! Oh, I am glad! But why did you not come before, so that you could have heard Boris sing? The very first time for so very many weeks—and superbly!”
“I did hear quite a lot from outside—the violin too, Miss Maddelena,” he said, smiling down at her. “You’re right, superb is the only word.”
He exchanged greetings with the maestro and Melikoff, who, flushed, smiling, excited, looked an altogether different being from the stricken, morose creature Austin had known hitherto.
“All is coming right, as I told you it would,” said Cacciola delightedly. “The voice is fine as ever. You heard? It is but a matter of time now and our Boris will be known as the world’s greatest tenor, and you, signor, will be able to boast that you are one of the few who has had the privilege of hearing him in private, for he will sing again presently. But come, you have not yet seen an old friend of yours, who happily is also here: my dear young pupil, Miss Winston.”
Why he should have experienced an extraordinary sensation of embarrassment and dismay Austin really did not know, but he certainly did so, as from a big chair in the dusk beyond the grand piano Winnie rose and came towards him.
“Winnie! I didn’t think to meet you here,” he murmured confusedly.
“Nor I you,” said Winnie. “I returned yesterday.”
“I know. I was coming around to see you to-morrow. Did you have a good time, dear?”
“Quite good—thanks. But I must be off now. Good-bye, maestro, and——”
“But no, no, you must not go!” protested Cacciola. “Giulia will bring in tea in one moment now—Maddelena will hasten her—real Russian tea that Boris has taught us to like, and it is so good for the voice too! Also you must sing again presently. We have not got that new song right yet.”
“I’m so tired, maestro, and I couldn’t sing after Mr. Melikoff. How splendid he is!”
“Pouff! Not sing again indeed; you must not talk like an amateur. You are an artiste, and among ourselves we never make comparisons. Though there can never be any comparison with Boris: he is unique! How thankful I am—and so is my Maddelena—that he is recovering himself. Now sit down again, my child, and here is a chair for Mr. Starr.”
Maddelena had taken her uncle’s hint and gone to hurry up Giulia with the tea, and Boris followed her. Austin heard her laugh as they went along the passage. Truly the atmosphere here had changed marvellously in these few days. He sat down in the chair Cacciola had pulled up close to Winnie’s, but for once in his life could find nothing to say to her; while she virtually ignored him, and chatted with the maestro till the tea appeared, brought in procession by Giulia and the two young people.
Maddelena, in the highest spirits, was a charming hostess, and, like her uncle, treated Austin with the easy familiarity of old friendship. It was merely their unconventional, hospitable way, as Winnie at least knew perfectly well, from her long acquaintance with the maestro, though she had never happened to meet Maddelena till now; yet she wondered how often he had been there of late, and why he had said nothing about it.
There was more music after tea. Winnie sang without further demur, at the maestro’s bidding, and was painfully conscious, as were her auditors, that, for her, she sang very badly. She had a beautiful, mezzo-soprano voice, sweet, true and fresh as a song-bird’s, and perfectly trained—Cacciola had seen to that—but to-night it was toneless, lifeless, devoid of expression.
“I’m sorry, maestro,” she murmured apologetically at the end, meeting his gaze of consternation.
“We shall do better to-morrow,” he said consolingly. “Will you come to me at three? Good! It is strange, for it went so well before; but, as you say, you are tired, I should not have insisted. Now, Boris, once more?”
Melikoff, sprawling on the hearthrug and looking through a pile of music, selected a book of Russian songs, and began to rise.
“Not those!” said Maddelena imperatively, snatching the book from him and picking up another. “Mr. Starr wants to hear the Neapolitan ones—with the guitar. I will get it!” As she passed Austin she bent and whispered significantly, “He shall sing no Russian here if I can prevent it,” and he nodded as one who understood.
Winnie could not hear the words, but she saw the incident, and found in it fresh food for thought.
“With a guitar—good; that gives me a rest,” said Cacciola, quitting the piano and settling himself comfortably in his big chair. “They are trifles, these songs, but not unworthy even of Boris. There is the soul of the people in them. Now, my children.”
He was right. Those songs—sung by generations of humble folk for centuries, and famous throughout the world to-day—were a revelation as Boris Melikoff sang them, albeit he was the son of a sterner and sadder race: songs of life, and love, and death, of sunshine and storm, with the sound of the sea as an undertone through all, heard in the thrilling throb of the guitar, which Maddelena played like the artiste she was.
Austin listened in sheer delight, forgetful of everything else in the world for the moment.
When the last exquisite note died away there was a little interval of silence more eloquent than any words. Maddelena, the guitar on her lap, looked up at Boris with a tremulous smile, her eyes shining through tears, murmuring something in Italian, and impulsively he stooped and kissed her on the lips, just as Cacciola cried, also in Italian:
“Brava! brava! dear children. There can be nothing better in its way!”
Austin joined wholeheartedly in the applause and congratulations.
“How splendidly you accompany him, Miss Maddelena.”
“Yes, does she not?” said Boris. “I do not think I could sing those songs so with anyone but Maddelena. And you would not think it was so long since we practised them together—nearly a year?”
“Yes, a long year!” said Maddelena.
“I must be going,” Winnie announced. “Good-bye, Miss Cacciola; you’ve given me a most tremendous treat, both of you. Now keep up the singing, Mr. Melikoff. We’re all so proud of you, and want you to have the world at your feet, as you will soon! Good-bye, maestro. Three o’clock to-morrow.”
She turned to Austin, with a curious enigmatic little smile, an inquiring lift of her eyebrows.
“I’m coming with you,” he said, and proceeded to make his own adieux.
Cacciola came to the door with them, but scarcely had they descended the first flight of stairs when Maddelena came running after them.
“Mr. Starr!”
Austin turned and came up a few steps to meet her.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered hurriedly, bending her charming face confidentially towards him. “I have not been able to question him about those others, or, more truthfully, I would not do so, for, as you see, he is beginning to forget, and I feared to bring the black shadow upon him again.”
“I understand, Miss Cacciola, and I’ve got some information already, from another source; but what about that key, and——”
“And the person who entered? We do not know. My uncle spoke to Boris next morning. He knew nothing, and says he is sure it was none of his friends. But that key which—she—had has never been found, and we have had the lock changed, as you said. Good-bye. Come again soon.”
She retreated, and he ran down the stairs, overtaking Winnie just outside.
“Great luck to find you, dear,” he said, falling into step beside her.
“Yes? I didn’t know you were so intimate with the Cacciolas.”
“I’m not, except that they’re so friendly and easy to get on with. I’ve only met Miss Maddelena once before—when I went around there one evening.”
“Oh, how interesting!”
She spoke quite gently, but in a tone and manner so cold and dignified that he might have been an utter stranger. He felt hurt, indignant; but his tone was as aloof as her own as he responded:
“Yes, it was interesting—very. I went, as I told you I should, to try and get hold of a clue.”
She turned to him quickly:
“Oh! Did you find out anything?”
“Very little so far. I’ll tell you all about it when we get in. I should have told you before, of course, if you hadn’t been away.”
“There’s a tram stopping,” she said inconsequently, and made for it. “Which way are you going?”
“To take you home, of course.”
“I’m not going home, but to Grace at Buckingham Gate. She’s there now.”
He nodded; it was impossible to talk in the noisy and crowded tram.
“We’ll take a taxi from here,” he suggested meekly when they alighted at the terminus opposite the station.
“Certainly not! I’m going to St. James’s Park,” said Winnie decisively, and hurried recklessly across the road, in imminent danger of being run over.
“Now what in thunder’s wrong?” Austin asked himself, but there was no opportunity of asking her, until at length they reached the quietude of Buckingham Gate, and then he found it difficult to begin.
“I’ve such lots to tell you, but it will have to keep till to-morrow night, for I’ve to go around to the ‘Courier’ now,” he said awkwardly. “Give my love to Grace. And—see here, Winnie—what’s wrong, dear?”
“Wrong? What do you mean? Nothing—or—oh, everything, I think! Never mind. Here we are. Good night, Austin.”
She did give him her hand, but withdrew it quickly, and stepped into the waiting lift, which bore her swiftly out of sight.
Austin stood for a few seconds, frowning; then lighted a cigarette, striking the match with an angry jerk, and went on his way feeling exceedingly ill-used!
There are very few, if any, prisoners, be they innocent or guilty, who, accused of murder, or of any other crime considered too serious to admit of release on bail, do not endure agonies of mind during that terrible interval between their committal and trial.
Possibly the innocent suffer the most; for to all the restraints and humiliations of prison life—less severe, indeed, than those imposed on convicted criminals, but still irksome and wearing to a degree—are added a bitter sense of injustice and often almost intolerable anxiety on account of those, their nearest and dearest, who, innocent as themselves, are yet inevitably involved in the disaster, subjected to all the agonies of separation, of suspense, sometimes of piteous privation. Even the fortitude induced by the inner consciousness of innocence is seldom strong enough to overcome this mental and physical distress.
So Roger Carling suffered—all the more because he strove to show no sign, endeavoured always to appear cheerful and confident in his interviews with his solicitors and counsel, and above all with Grace, whose visits, albeit under the strict regulations as to time, and under more or less official surveillance, were the great events of this grim and dreary period.
Like the blessed sunshine she came into that bare, formal room, always beautifully dressed, with a smile on her dear lips, the lovelight in her eyes; and they would sit hand in hand and chat almost gaily for the prescribed time, which sped all too swiftly, while the dark intervals between dragged on leaden feet.
Only God, Who knows the secret of all hearts, knew what effort that courage required, or how nearly their hearts were breaking!
For the days and weeks were drifting by, and no fresh light whatever had been shed on the mystery of Paula Rawson’s death. The trial was to take place early in the New Year, the first on the list for the session, and Cummings-Browne, K.C., had been secured for the defence. If anyone could secure acquittal on such slight grounds of defence as were at present available it was he. But although the faithful few never wavered in their belief of Roger Carling’s innocence, they knew it would be a stern fight—in fact, almost a forlorn hope.
Only Grace herself would never acknowledge that. How his deliverance would be brought about, his innocence established before all the world, she did not know; but not even in those long nights when she lay awake, thinking of and praying for her beloved in anguish of soul, did she allow herself to doubt that he would be delivered, he would be vindicated.
That sublime faith alone enabled her to endure these dark winter days of loneliness and sorrow.
Always she kept before her the one thought: “When Roger comes home.” On that she shaped her whole life.
That was why she insisted on living alone in the little flat that was to have been their first home, which she told herself should yet be their home together.
Day after day she laboured, putting it in beautiful order, arranging Roger’s writing-table, their chair that was to be his special one, his favourite books, just where she felt sure he would like them to be; and while she was so employed she was almost happy. It seemed as though any moment he might come in.
Only when each day’s task was over, and she strove to concentrate her mind on reading or sewing, the thought of him in his bare prison room was almost more than she could endure, and slow, quiet tears would fall on the work or the page, while in her ears and in her aching heart echoed that haunting strain, last heard in Canterbury Cathedral on that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday after their marriage: