Needs some Explanation.

“What is it?” I asked anxiously.

“Well,” said the officer, looking meaningly at me, “I would rather speak with you alone.”

“You mean that you want me to go away,” exclaimed Lucie quickly. “Have you discovered anything further regarding my poor father’s death?”

“No, miss. Unfortunately not. I want to consult Mr Leaf in private—only for a few minutes.”

“Certainly,” she said; and, rising, passed along the ward and out into the corridor.

“Well?” I inquired. “What is it?”

“Something that closely concerns yourself, Mr Leaf,” he said, with a curious expression upon his face. “Perhaps you will explain it.”

“Explain what?”

“The reason the Italian people have sent an agent over here to apply for your arrest and extradition upon the charge of murdering a police officer in a villa at Tivoli, near Rome.”

“They’ve done that!” I gasped, recollecting, however, that I had showed my revolver licence to the carabineer, and therefore they knew my proper name and description.

“Yes. And there is a second point which requires clearing up,” he said, rather severely. “You told me that you were only slightly acquainted with this man Miller, whereas it has been established by the Italian police that he was at that villa with you.”

“How established?”

“It appears, as far as we can gather from the police agent sent from Rome, that a young man of very bad character was seen in the vicinity of the villa on the night of the affair, and was afterwards arrested in Rome. He gave the description of one of his accomplices, an Englishman, and it proves to have been the man Miller, whom the Italian police, like ourselves, have wanted for a long time. So you see what a serious charge there is against you.”

“I quite see it,” I answered, utterly amazed that I should find such an allegation against me, after I had congratulated myself upon my clever escape.

“The Italian police ask for the arrest of both yourself and Miller.”

“Well, they won’t arrest him, at any rate,” I said. “And I doubt whether they will arrest me when I tell the whole story. You say they have made only one arrest in Rome?” I added.

“Only one.”

Then Dr Gavazzi was still at liberty. He had decamped and was in some place of safety with those packets of bank-notes with which his pockets had bulged.

It certainly seemed as though I was to be placed under arrest a second time. Formal application had been made to Scotland Yard, and the fact that I had admitted acquaintance with Miller, a known thief, did not allow them any alternative but to obey.

The detective told me that, whereupon I asked to speak with the Italian Agent.

“I’ll bring him to you in an hour’s time, or so,” was the inspector’s answer, and when he had gone Lucie returned to my side.

“You are upset, Mr Leaf. What has he discovered? Anything startling?”

“No,” was my response. “Only a fact that surprises me. Really nothing which has any important bearing upon the affair. Ah!” I sighed, “how I long to be strong enough to leave this place and to see Ella. Will you endeavour to see her? Tell her I am here. I must see her—must, you understand.”

“I’ll go straight to Porchester Terrace,” she promised. “But if you see that man Gordon-Wright say nothing. Do not mention me, remember.”

“I quite understand.” And as the nurse approached, Lucie took my hand, bending for a moment over my bed, and then left me.

An hour later my friend the detective was again at my bedside, accompanied by a short, thick-set, black-bearded little man, typically Italian.

“I hear you have been sent to England to effect my arrest,” I exclaimed in his own language.

“That is so, signore, though I much regret it.”

“You need not regret. You are only doing your duty,” I said. “But I merely wish to assure you that I have no intention of trying to escape you. In fact, I couldn’t walk the length of this room at present to save my life. I’m too weak. But before you place a constable on duty here, I would ask you one favour.”

“What is that?”

“To convey a letter for me to the secretary at the Italian Embassy in Grosvenor Square. He will give you instructions regarding me.”

“Then you are known at the Embassy!” the police agent exclaimed, in surprise.

“I think you will find that I am.”

The nurse brought a pen, ink and a sheet of paper, upon which after great difficulty I wrote a note recalling my confidential visit regarding Nardini’s death, and explaining that the police were in error in thinking that I had any hand in the death of the guardian of the Villa Verde. I had been at the villa, I admitted, but out of curiosity, as I had watched the action of Miller and his companions. If any one were sent to me from the Embassy, I said, I would make a confidential statement.

When I had sealed the letter, the police agent took it, and next morning I received a call from the official with whom I had had a chat on the occasion of my visit to the Embassy. To him I explained the whole circumstances in strictest confidence, and described the secret hiding-place in the dead man’s library where were concealed a number of official papers that were evidently of great importance.

He heard me to the end, and afterwards reassured me by saying:—

“We have already given the police commissario instructions not to take any further steps against you, Mr Leaf. We quite accept your explanation, and at the same time thank you for this further information you are able to give us. A search shall be made at the spot you indicate.”

And then I took a piece of paper and pencil, and drew a plan of the concealed cupboard and how to open the panel.

Shortly after the Embassy official had left the police agent again visited me, presented his apologies for having disturbed me, and then throughout the day I remained alone with my own apprehensive thoughts regarding Ella.

She was prevented from coming to me on account of that man in whom she went in such deadly terror. Nothing had yet got into the papers concerning the dastardly attempt upon me, for the police had been very careful to keep it from those inquisitive gentlemen-of-the-press who called at the hospital every few hours to gather news of the latest accidents or tragedies. But if Lucie had told her I knew how alarmed and anxious she would be. She loved me—ah, yes, she loved me. Of that I felt confident.

Yet would she ever be mine? Was it the end—the end of all? Was the old sweet life of that summer beside the sea dead and gone for evermore? Should I never see a red rose, her favourite flower, bloom upon its bush without this sickness of soul upon me? Should I never smell the salt of the sea, or drink the cornfields’ breaths on a moonlit night without this madness of memory that is worse than all death?

Was she lost to me—lost to me for ever?

I forgot that the inquest upon Miller was to be held that afternoon, and that Lucie was the principal witness. The Coroner, a sharp-featured, grey-bearded man, came to my bedside, and with a clerk and the foreman of the jury, put me upon oath and took my evidence—evidence to the effect that I had dined in company with the deceased at the American’s flat. I explained how our host had mixed those final drinks—draughts that he intended should be fatal.

Then when I had concluded by declaring that I had no previous knowledge of Himes, the Coroner made me sign the statement, and returned to where the jury awaited him.

The Coroner’s officer, a police-sergeant in uniform, told me that they were taking precautions to keep the affair out of the papers, as they feared that the publication of the evidence might defeat their efforts to trace Himes.

Shortly after five o’clock Lucie came again, looking pale and agitated after the ordeal of giving evidence. A verdict of “death from poison wilfully administered” had been returned.

The Coroner and jury had questioned her closely regarding her father’s mode of life and his recent movements. Of the latter she was, of course, unaware. She only knew that he had been called unexpectedly to Rome, and had returned direct to England. Of the reason of his flying visit to Italy she was entirely unaware. He seldom, she said, ever told her about his own affairs, being naturally a close man regarding everything that concerned himself.

“They asked me about the man Himes,” she said, as she sat by my bedside, “and I was compelled to tell them how he had once been poor dad’s most intimate friend.”

“Did he ever meet Ella, do you think?” I asked suddenly.

“Never to my knowledge. Why?”

“I was only wondering—that’s all. Perhaps he knew Gordon-Wright.”

“I believe he did. They met one night when we were living in rooms at Fulham, if I recollect aright, and about six months later they went for a holiday together in Germany.”

“Did you ever meet that Italian doctor Gennaro Gavazzi who lived in Rome?”

She looked at me with a quick suspicion that she was unable to disguise.

&............