Love in Fetters.

“Just step in here one moment,” said the man in the grey suit. “I want to ask you a question.” And he conducted me to a small office at the farther end of the platform, the bureau of the Italian police.

“Now who are you?” he asked, fixing me with his keen dark eyes, while the two detectives, who had evidently been expecting my arrival and identified me from the telegraphed description, stood by watching.

“My name is Sampson—Samuel Sampson,” was my prompt reply, for during the whole of the previous day I had gradually concocted a story in readiness for any emergency.

“Oh!” exclaimed the delegato in disbelief. “And what are you?”

“Under-steward on board the Italia of the Anchor Line between Naples and New York. I landed yesterday morning at Leghorn, and am going home on a holiday to London. Why?” I asked, with feigned surprise.

“You left Rome yesterday,” he said, “and your name is Godfrey Leaf,”—he pronounced it “Lif.”

“Oh!” I laughed, “that’s something new. What else? If you doubt me here’s my passport. It’s an English passport with the Italian visé, and I fancy it ought to be good enough for you.”

And I handed him Sammy Sampson’s passport which had been in the writing-book in my suit-case for close upon a year—ever since he and I had taken a short trip to San Sebastian, over the Spanish border.

The police inspector opened the document, glanced at the visa of the Italian Consulate-General in London, and carefully spelt the name of Sampson.

“There is no description or profession,” he remarked dubiously.

“Well,” I said, “I suppose that is not the first English passport you’ve seen, is it? But I don’t think you have ever seen one different, or with fuller detail than that!”

“Then you are not Godfrey ‘Lif’?” he asked, still dubious.

“I’m what I’ve already told you. What do you suspect of me? I’m an Englishman travelling home, I’ve committed no crime or offence against the law, and I don’t see why I should suffer this indignity! But if you desire to be satisfied, you are perfectly at liberty to search me and my belongings.” And I handed him my bundle.

“We’ve already seen it when it was examined in the dogana,” remarked one of the detectives.

My revolver licence, card-case, cigarette-case and other articles that might betray me I had been careful to put in my trunk which was registered through to London. Therefore I had thoroughly assumed my friend’s identity. English passports are so vague and lax that the greatest abuses are often committed with them.

I was quick to notice that my prompt reply to the questions rather nonplussed my interrogator. He took the official telegram from the table, read what it contained very carefully, and then looked long and earnestly at me.

I remained firm and unmoved, well knowing that all my future happiness depended upon my calm indifference. Yet indifference at such a moment was a matter of extreme difficulty.

He began to put other questions to me, in the hope, it appeared, of making me commit myself to a falsehood. But I was now thoroughly on the alert, and gave quick, unhesitating replies.

Had the inspector been an Englishman he would probably have detected by my speech that I was not an under-steward, but being Italian he was thus handicapped. Indeed, so circumstantial an account did I give of getting two months’ leave from my ship to visit my mother in London, and in addition presenting a passport perfectly in order, that just before the train was leaving for France he and his companions, filled with doubt as to whether I was actually the person wanted, allowed me to walk out again upon the platform—a free man!

Five minutes later I had mounted into an empty third-class compartment, but I dare not breathe before the train slowly moved away in the “direction de Paris.”

The terrible anxiety of those moments will surely live with me until my dying day, for I had both love and life at stake; my own love, my well-beloved’s life!

After thirty hours of slow travelling and constant stoppages and shuntings I arrived at the Gare de Lyon, and again resuming the luxury of a collar and cravat I purchased a ready-made suit of blue serge, a hard felt hat and a few necessaries, for no longer I needed the disguise of a workman.

Contrary to my usual custom of going to the Grand, I put up at the Athenée, which is greatly patronised by Americans, and where I had a New York friend staying at that moment. Then, after dinner, I telegraphed to Leghorn to Lucie Miller telling her that I had left Italy, and that if she wished to communicate with me she should write or telegraph. My idea was that if her father had been arrested, as he most probably had been, she would certainly require the assistance of some friend, and might probably prefer me. Of course she would not willingly admit to me her father’s disgrace, yet by her own actions I should be pretty well able to judge what had taken place.

I was eager to be back near Ella, yet before I crossed to England I determined to await a reply to my message to Lucie.

For three days I remained in suspense, idling with my American friend in cafés and restaurants, and showing him Paris in a mild kind of way.

I had searched the French and English newspapers diligently to learn any details of the affair at the Villa Verde, but in vain, until one evening in the reading-room of the hotel I came across a copy of the Corriere della Sera, the journal of Milan, in which was a long telegram from Rome, headed: “The Escape of the Minister Nardini: Mysterious Tragedy at the Villa Verde.”

In breathless eagerness I read how the police, on going in the morning to relieve the guard placed at the villa, found the unfortunate man lying dead with a knife-wound in his heart. Thieves had evidently entered the house by the window of the study which looked out upon the roadway, for the iron bars had been filed through and a space made sufficient to admit a man. Nothing, however, had been taken, as far as could be ascertained. The study was in complete order, and the police theory was that the man in charge, hearing the noise, had entered the room only to be confronted by several men. He then fled across the house intending to get out and raise the alarm, when he was overtaken in the passage and stabbed.

The theory was, of course, quite a natural one.

The thieves had, it seemed, before their escape placed the room in order, closed the secret cupboard, replaced the panel, and put down the carpet as they had found it. The action of reclosing the panel had, of course, released the bolts that held the door, but they had already, by some means or other, cut through the bars. Probably they escaped without knowing that the door had been automatically released.

In any case they were clear away with a sum amounting to many thousands of pounds sterling—probably the greatest haul Miller had made in all his career.

There was, however, a second telegram which stated that two carabineers patrolling the road near the villa had stopped and questioned a mysterious Englishman who was now suspected to be one of the assassins, and after whom the police were in active search.

Miller and his companions were actually scot-free—and with their enormous booty!

No word was published regarding the mysterious discovery previously made in that house. The police were still hushing up the affair that was so shrouded in mystery, yet at the same time they evidently connected the two curious circumstances, and regarded them as a problem altogether beyond solution. Little, however, did they dream that the missing man’s secret hoard had been carried off in its entirety!

Next morning, when the waiter brought my coffee, a telegram lay upon the tray. It was from Lucie, despatch............