The Rome Express

despot.

  "But I protest--"

  "I wish to hear no further observations, monsieur. You may reservethem till you can give them to the right person."

  The General's temper was sorely ruffled. He did not like it atall; yet what could he do? Prudence gained the day, and after astruggle he decided to submit, lest worse might befall him.

  There was, in truth, worse to be encountered. It was very irksometo be in the power of this now domineering little man on his ownground, and eager to show his power. It was with a very bad gracethat Sir Charles obeyed the curt orders he received, to leave thecab, to enter at a side door of the Prefecture, to follow thispompous conductor along the long vaulted passages of this ramblingbuilding, up many flights of stone stairs, to halt obediently athis command when at length they reached a closed door on an upperstory.

  "It is here!" said M. Flocon, as he turned the handleunceremoniously without knocking. "Enter."

  A man was seated at a small desk in the centre of a big bare room,who rose at once at the sight of M. Flocon, and bowed deferentiallywithout speaking.

  "Baume," said the Chief, shortly, "I wish to leave this gentlemanwith you. Make him at home,"--the words were spoken in manifestirony,--"and when I call you, bring him at once to my cabinet.You, monsieur, you will oblige me by staying here."

  Sir Charles nodded carelessly, took the first chair that offered,and sat down by the fire.

  He was to all intents and purposes in custody, and he examined hisgaoler at first wrathfully, then curiously, struck with his ratherstrange figure and appearance. Baume, as the Chief had called him,was a short, thick-set man with a great shock head sunk in lowbetween a pair of enormous shoulders, betokening great physicalstrength; he stood on very thin but greatly twisted bow legs, andthe quaintness of his figure was emphasized by the short blackblouse or smock-frock he wore over his other clothes like a Frenchartisan.

  He was a man of few words, and those not the most polite in tone,for when the General began with a banal remark about the weather,M. Baume replied, shortly:

  "I wish to have no talk;" and when Sir Charles pulled out hiscigarette-case, as he did almost automatically from time to timewhen in any situation of annoyance or perplexity, Baume raised hishand warningly and grunted:

  "Not allowed."

  "Then I'll be hanged if I don't smoke in spite of every man jackof you!" cried the General, hotly, rising from his seat andspeaking unconsciously in English.

  "What's that?" asked Baume, gruffly. He was one of the detectivestaff, and was only doing his duty according to his lights, and hesaid so with such an injured air that the General was pacified,laughed, and relapsed into silence without lighting his cigarette.

  The time ran on, from minutes into nearly an hour, a very tryingwait for Sir Charles. There is always something irritating indoing antechamber work, in kicking one's heels in the waiting-roomof any functionary or official, high or low, and the General foundit hard to possess himself in patience, when he thought he wasbeing thus ignominiously treated by a man like M. Flocon. All thetime, too, he was worrying himself about the Countess, wonderingfirst how she had fared; next, where she was just then; last ofall, and longest, whether it was possible for her to be mixed upin anything compromising or criminal.

  Suddenly an electric bell struck in the room. There was a tabletelephone at Baume's elbow; he took up the handle, put the tube tohis mouth and ear, got his message answered, and then, rising,said abruptly to Sir Charles:

  "Come."

  When the General was at last ushered into the presence of theChief of the Detective Police, he found to his satisfaction thatColonel Papillon was also there, and at M. Flocon's side sat theinstructing judge, M. Beaumont le Hardi, who, after waitingpolitely until the two Englishmen had exchanged greetings, was thefirst to speak, and in apology.

  "You will, I trust, pardon us, M. le General, for having detainedyou here and so long. But there were, as we thought, good andsufficient reasons. If those have now lost some of their cogency,we still stand by our action as having been justifiable in theexecution of our duty. We are now willing to let you go free,because--because--"

  "We have caught the person, the lady you helped to escape,"blurted out the detective, unable to resist making the point.

  "The Countess? Is she here, in custody? Never!"

  "Undoubtedly she is in custody, and in very close custody too,"went on M. Flocon, gleefully. "_ Au secret_, if you know whatthat means--in a cell separate and apart, where no one ispermitted to see or speak to her."

  "Surely not that? Jack--Papillon--this must not be. I beg of you,implore, insist, that you will get his lordship to interpose."

  "But, sir, how can I? You must not ask impossibilities. TheContessa Castagneto is really an Italian subject now."

  "She is English by birth, and whether or no, she is a woman, ahigh-bred lady; and it is abominable, unheard-of, to subject herto such monstrous treatment," said the General.

  "But these gentlemen declare that they are fully warranted, thatshe has put herself in the wrong--greatly, culpably in the wrong."

  "I don't believe it!" cried the General, indignantly. "Not fromthese chaps, a pack of idiots, always on the wrong tack! I don'tbelieve a word, not if they swear."

  "But they have documentary evidence--papers of the most damagingkind against her."

  "Where? How?"

  "He--M. le Juge--has been showing me a note-book;" and theGeneral's eyes, following Jack Papillon's, were directed to asmall _carnet_, or memorandum-book, which the Judge, interpretingthe glance, was tapping significantly with his finger.

  Then the Judge said blandly, "It is easy to perceive that youprotest, M. le General, against that lady's arrest. Is it so?Well, we are not called upon to justify it to you, not in the veryleast. But we are dealing with a brave man, a gentleman, anofficer of high rank and consideration, and you shall know thingsthat we are not bound to tell, to you or to any one."

  "First," he continued, holding up the note-book, "do you know whatthis is? Have you ever seen it before?"

  "I am dimly conscious of the fact, and yet I cannot say when orwhere."

  "It is the property of one of your fellow travellers--an Italiancalled Ripaldi."

  "Ripaldi?" said the General, remembering with some uneasiness thathe had seen the name at the bottom of the Countess's telegram."Ah! now I understand."

  "You had heard of it, then? In what connection?" asked the Judge,a little carelessly, but it was a suddenly planned pitfall.

  "I now understand," replied the General, perfectly on his guard,"why the note-book was familiar to me. I had seen it in that man'shands in the waiting-room. He was writing in it."

  "Indeed? A favourite occupation evidently. He was fond ofconfiding in that note-book, and committed to it much that henever expected would see the light--his movements, intentions,ideas, even his inmost thoughts. The book--which he no doubt lostinadvertently is very incriminating to himself and his friends."

  "What do you imply?" hastily inquired Sir Charles.

  "Simply that it is on that which is written here that we base onepart, perhaps the strongest, of our case against the Countess.It is strangely but convincingly corroborative of our suspicionsagainst her."

  "May I look at it for myself?" went on the General in a tone ofcontemptuous disbelief.

  "It is in Italian. Perhaps you can read that language? If not, Ihave translated the most important passages," said the Judge,offering some other papers.

  "Thank you; if you will permit me, I should prefer to look at theoriginal;" and the General, without more ado, stretched out hishand and took the note-book.

  What he read there, as he quickly scanned its pages, shall be toldin the next chapter. It will be seen that there were thingswritten that looked very damaging to his dear friend, SabineCastagneto.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Ripaldi's diary--its ownership plainly shown by the record of hisname in full, Natale Ripaldi, inside the cover--was a commonplacenote-book bound in shabb
y drab cloth, its edges and cornersstrengthened with some sort of white metal. The pages were ofcoarse paper, lined blue and red, and they were dog-eared andsmirched as though they had been constantly turned over and used.

  The earlier entries were little more than a record of work to door done.

  "Jan. 11. To call at Cafe di Roma, 12.30. Beppo will meet me.

  "Jan. 13. Traced M. L. Last employed as a model at S.'s studio,Palazzo B.

  "Jan. 15. There is trouble brewing at the Circulo Bonafede;Louvaih, Malatesta, and the Englishman Sprot, have joined it. Allare noted Anarchists.

  "Jan. 20. Mem., pay Trattore. The Bestia will not wait. X. is alsopressing, and Mariuccia. Situation tightens.

  "Jan. 23. Ordered to watch Q. Could I work him? No. Strong doubtsof his solvency.

  "Feb. 10, 11, 12. After Q. No grounds yet.

  "Feb. 27. Q. keeps up good appearance. Any mistake? Shall I tryhim? Sorely pressed. X. threatens me with Prefettura.

  "March 1. Q. in difficulties. Out late every night. Is playinghigh; poor luck.

  "March 3. Q. means mischief. Preparing for a start?

  "March 10. Saw Q. about, here, there, everywhere."

  Then followed a brief account of Quadling's movements on the daybefore his departure from Rome, very much as they have beendescribed in a previous chapter. These were made mostly in theform of reflections, conjectures, hopes, and fears; hurry-scurryof pursuit had no doubt broken the immediate record of events, andthese had been entered next day in the train.

  "March 17 (the day previous). He has not shown up. I thought tosee him at the buffet at Genoa. The conductor took him his coffeeto the car. I hoped to have begun an acquaintance.

  "12.30. Breakfasted at Turin. Q. did not come to table. Found himhanging about outside restaurant. Spoke; got short reply. Wishesto avoid observation, I suppose.

  "But he speaks to others. He has claimed acquaintance withmadame's lady's maid, and he wants to speak to the mistress. 'Tellher I must speak to her,' I heard him say, as I passed close tothem. Then they separated hurriedly.

  "At Modane he came to the Douane, and afterwards into therestaurant. He bowed across the table to the lady. She hardlyrecognized him, which is odd. Of course she must know him; thenwhy--? There is something between them, and the maid is in it.

  "What shall _I_ do? I could spoil any game of theirs if Istepped in. What are they after? His money, no doubt.

  "So am I; I have the best right to it, for I can do most for him.He is absolutely in my power, and he'll see that--he's no fool--directly he knows who I am, and why I'm here. It will be worth hiswhile to buy me off, if I'm ready to sell myself, and my duty, andthe Prefettura--and why shouldn't I? What better can I do? Shall Iever have such a chance again? Twenty, thirty, forty thousandlire, more, even, at one stroke; why, it's a fortune! I could goto the Republic, to America, North or South, send for Mariuccia--no, _cos petto!_ I will continue free! I will spend the money onmyself, as I alone will have earned it, and at such risk.

  "I have worked it out thus:

  "I will go to him at the very last, just before we are reachingParis. Tell him, threaten him with arrest, then give him hischance of escape. No fear that he won't accept it; he _must_,whatever he may have settled with the others. _Altro!_ I snap myfingers at them. He has most to fear from me."

  The next entries were made after some interval, a long interval,--no doubt, after the terrible deed had been done,--and the wordswere traced with trembling fingers, so that the writing was mostirregular and scarcely legible.

  "Ugh! I am still trembling with horror and fear. I cannot get itout of my mind; I never shall. Why, what tempted me? How could Ibring myself to do it?

  "But for these two women--they are fiends, furies--it would neverhave been necessary. Now one of them has escaped, and the other--she is here, so cold-blooded, so self-possessed and quiet--whowould have thought it of her? That she, a lady of rank and highbreeding, gentle, delicate, tender-hearted. Tender? the fiend! Oh,shall I ever forget her?

  "And now she has me in her power! But have I not her also? We arein the same boat--we must sink or swim, together. We are equallybound, I to her, she to me. What are we to do? How shall we meetinquiry? _Santissima Donna!_ why did I not risk it, and climbout like the maid? It was terrible for the moment, but the worstwould have been over, and now--"

  There was yet more, scribbled in the same faltering, agitatedhandwriting, and from the context the entries had been made in thewaiting-room of the railroad station.

  "I must attract her attention. She will not look my way. I wanther to understand that I have something special to say to her, andthat, as we are forbidden to speak, I am writing it herein--thatshe must contrive to take the book from me and read unobserved.

  "_ Cos petto!_ she is stupid! Has fear dazed her entirely? Nomatter, I will set it all down."

  Now followed what the police deemed such damaging evidence.

  "Countess. Remember. Silence--absolute silence. Not a word as towho I am, or what is common knowledge to us both. It is done. Thatcannot be undone. Be brave, resolute; admit nothing. Stick to itthat you know nothing, heard nothing. Deny that you knew _him_,or me. Swear you slept soundly the night through, make someexcuse, say you were drugged, anything, only be on your guard, andsay nothing about me. I warn you. Leave me alone. Or--but yourinterests are my interests; we must stand or fall together.Afterwards I will meet you--I _must_ meet you somewhere. If wemiss at the station front, write to me Poste Restante, GrandHotel, and give me an address. This is imperative. Once more,silence and discretion."

  This ended the writing in the note-book, and the whole perusaloccupied Sir Charles from fifteen to twenty minutes, during whichthe French officials watched his face closely, and his friendColonel Papillon anxiously.

  But the General's mask was impenetrable, and at the end of hisreading he turned back to read and re-read many pages, holding thebook to the light, and seeming to examine the contents verycuriously.

  "Well?" said the Judge at last, when he met the General's eye.

  "Do you lay great store by this evidence?" asked the General in acalm, dispassionate voice.

  "Is it not natural that we should? Is it not strongly,conclusively incriminating?"

  "It would be so, of course, if it were to be depended upon. But asto that I have my doubts, and grave doubts."

  "Bah!" interposed the detective; "that is mere conjecture, mereassertion. Why should not the book be believed? It is perfectlygenuine--"

  "Wait, sir," said the General, raising his hand. "Have you notnoticed--surely it cannot have escaped so astute a policefunctionary--that the entries are not all in the same handwriting?"

  "What! Oh, that is too absurd!" cried both the officials in abreath.

  They saw at once that if this discovery were admitted to be anabsolute fact, the whole drift of their conclusions must bechanged.

  "Examine the book for yourselves. To my mind it is perfectly clearand beyond all question," insisted Sir Charles. "I am quitepositive that the last pages were written by a different hand fromthe first."

  CHAPTER XIX

  For several minutes both the Judge and the detective pored overthe note-book, examining page after page, shaking their heads, anddeclining to accept the evidence of their eyes.

  "I cannot see it," said the Judge at last; adding reluctantly, "Nodoubt there is a difference, but it is to be explained."

  "Quite so," put in M. Flocon. "When he wrote the early part, hewas calm and collected; the last entries, so straggling, soragged, and so badly written, were made when he was fresh from thecrime, excited, upset, little master of himself. Naturally hewould use a different hand."

  "Or he would wish to disguise it. It was likely he would so wish,"further remarked the Judge.

  "You admit, then, that there is a difference?" argued the General,shrewdly. "But there is more than a disguise. The best disguiseleaves certain unchangeable features. Some letters, capital G's,H's, and others, will betray themselves thro
ugh the bestdisguise. I know what I am saying. I have studied the subject ofhandwriting; it interests me. These are the work of two differenthands. Call in an expert; you will find I am right."

  "Well, well," said the Judge, after a pause, "let us grant yourposition for the moment. What do you deduce? What do you infertherefrom?"

  "Surely you can see what follows--what this leads us to?" said SirCharles, rather disdainfully.

  "I have formed an opinion--yes, but I should like to see if itcoincides with yours. You think--"

  "I know," corrected the General. "I know that, as two personswrote in that book, either it is not Ripaldi's book, or the lastof them was not Ripaldi. I saw the last writer at his work, sawhim with my own eyes. Yet he did not write with Ripaldi's hand--this is incontestable, I am sure of it, I will swear it--ergo, heis not Ripaldi."

  "But you should have known this at the time," interjected M.Flocon, fiercely. "Why did you not discover the change ofidentity? You should have seen that this was not Ripaldi."

  "Pardon me. I did not know the man. I had not noticed himparticularly on the journey. There was no reason why I should. Ihad no communication, no dealings, with any of my fellowpassengers except my brother and the Countess."

  "But some of the others would surely have remarked the change?"went on the Judge, greatly puzzled. "That alone seems enough tocondemn your theory, M. le General."

  "I take my stand on fact, not theory," stoutly maintained SirCharles, "and I am satisfied I am right."

  "But if that was not Ripaldi, who was it? Who would wish tomasquerade in his dress and character, to make entries of thatsort, as if under his hand?"

  "Some one determined to divert suspicion from himself to others--"

  "But stay--does he not plainly confess his own guilt?"

  "What matter if he is not Ripaldi? Directly the inquiry was over,he could steal away and resume his own personality--that of a mansupposed to be dead, and therefore safe from all interference andfuture pursuit."

  "You mean--Upon my word, I compliment you, M. le General. It isreally ingenious! remarkable, indeed! superb!" cried the Judge,and only professional jealousy prevented M. Flocon from concedingthe same praise.

  "But how--what--I do not understand," asked Colonel Papillon inamazement. His wits did not travel quite so fast as those of hiscompanions.

  "Simply this, my dear Jack," explained the General: "Ripaldi musthave tried to blackmail Quadling, as he proposed, and Quadlingturned the tables on him. They fought, no doubt, and Quadlingkilled him, possibly in self-defence. He would have said so, butin his peculiar position as an absconding defaulter he did notdare. That is how I read it, and I believe that now thesegentlemen are disposed to agree with me."

  "In theory, certainly," said the Judge, heartily. "But oh! forsome more positive proof of this change of character! If we couldonly identify the corpse, prove clearly that it is not Quadling.And still more, if we had not let this so-called Ripaldi slipthrough our fingers! You will never find him, M. Flocon, never."

  The detective hung his head in guilty admission of this reproach.

  "We may help you in both these difficulties, gentlemen," said SirCharles, pleasantly. "My friend here, Colonel Papillon, can speakas to the man Quadling. He knew him well in Rome, a year or twoago."

  "Please wait one moment only;" the detective touched a bell, andbriefly ordered two fiacres to the door at once.

  "That is right, M. Flocon," said the Judge. "We will all go to theMorgue. The body is there by now. You will not refuse yourassistance, monsieur?"

  "One moment. As to the other matter, M. le General?" went on M.Flocon. "Can you help us to find this miscreant, whoever he maybe?"

  "Yes. The man who calls himself Ripaldi is to be found--or, atleast, you would have found him an hour or so ago--at the HotelIvoire, Rue Bellechasse. But time has been lost, I fear."

  "Nevertheless, we will send there."

  "The woman Hortense was also with him when last I heard of them."

  "How do you know?" began the detective, suspiciously.

  "Psha!" interrupted the Judge; "that will keep. This is the timefor action, and we owe too much to the General to distrust himnow."

  "Thank you; I am pleased to hear you say that," went on SirCharles. "But if I have been of some service to you, perhaps youowe me a little in return. That poor lady! Think what she issuffering. Surely, to oblige me, you will now set her free?"

  "Indeed, monsieur, I fear--I do not see how, consistently with myduty"--protested the Judge.

  "At least allow her to return to her hotel. She can remain thereat your disposal. I will promise you that."

  "How can you answer for her?"

  "She will do what I ask, I think, if I may send her just two orthree lines."

  The Judge yielded, smiling at the General's urgency, and shrewdlyguessing what it implied.

  Then the three departures from the Prefecture took place within ashort time of each other.

  A posse of police went to arrest Ripaldi; the Countess returned tothe Hotel Madagascar; and the Judge's party started for theMorgue,--only a short journey,--where they were presently receivedwith every mark of respect and consideration.

  The keeper, or officer in charge, was summoned, and came outbareheaded to the fiacre, bowing low before his distinguishedvisitors.

  "Good morning, La Peche," said M. Flocon in a sharp voice. "Wehave come for an identification. The body from the Lyons Station--he of the murder in the sleeping-car--is it yet arrived?"

  "But surely, at your service, Chief," replied the old man,obsequiously. "If the gentlemen will give themselves the troubleto enter the office, I will lead them behind, direct into themortuary chamber. There are many people in yonder."

  It was the usual crowd of sightseers passing slowly before theplate glass of this, the most terrible shop-front in the world,where the goods exposed, the merchandise, are hideous corpses laidout in rows upon the marble slabs, the battered, tattered remnantsof outraged humanity, insulted by the most terrible indignities indeath.

  Who make up this curious throng, and what strange morbid motivesdrag them there? Those fat, comfortable-looking women, with theirbaskets on their arms; the decent workmen in dusty blouses, idlingbetween the hours of work; the riffraff of the streets, male orfemale, in various stages of wretchedness and degradation? A few,no doubt, are impelled by motives we cannot challenge--they aretorn and tortured by suspense, trembling lest they may recognizemissing dear ones among the exposed; others stare carelessly atthe day's "take," wondering, perhaps, if they may come to the samefate; one or two are idle sightseers, not always French, for theMorgue is a favourite haunt with the irrepressible tourist doingParis. Strangest of all, the murderer himself, the doer of thefell deed, comes here, to the very spot where his victim liesstark and reproachful, and stares at it spellbound, fascinated,filled more with remorse, perchance, than fear at the risk heruns. So common is this trait, that in mysterious murder cases thepolice of Paris keep a disguised officer among the crowd at theMorgue, and have thereby made many memorable arrests.

  "This way, gentlemen, this way;" and the keeper of the Morgue ledthe party through one or two rooms into the inner and backrecesses of the buildings. It was behind the scenes of the Morgue,and they were made free of its most gruesome secrets as theypassed along.

  The temperature had suddenly fallen far below freezing-point, andthe icy cold chilled to the very marrow. Still worse was anall-pervading, acrid odour of artificially suspended animal decay. Thecold-air process, that latest of scientific contrivances to arrestthe waste of tissue, has now been applied at the Morgue topreserve and keep the bodies fresh, and allow them to be for alonger time exposed than when running water was the only aid.There are, moreover, many specially contrived refrigeratingchests, in which those still unrecognized corpses are laid by formonths, to be dragged out, if needs be, like carcasses of meat.

  "What a loathsome place!" cried Sir Charles. "Hurry up, Jack! letus get out of this, in Heaven's name!"
/>
  "Where's my man?" quickly asked Colonel Papillon in response tothis appeal.

  "There, the third from the left," whispered M. Flocon. "We hopedyou would recognize the corpse at once."

  "That? Impossible! You do not expect it, surely? Why, the face istoo much mangled for any one to say who it is."

  "Are there no indications, no marks or signs, to say whether it isQuadling or not?" asked the Judge in a greatly disappointed tone.

  "Absolutely nothing. And yet I am quite satisfied it is not him.For the simple reason that--"

  "Yes, yes, go on."

  "That Quadling in person is standing out there among the crowd."

  CHAPTER XX

  M. Flocon was the first to realize the full meaning of ColonelPapillon's surprising statement.

  "Run, run, La Peche! Have the outer doors closed; let no one leavethe place."

  "Draw back, gentlemen!" he went on, and he hustled his companionswith frantic haste out at the back of the mortuary chamber. "PrayHeaven he has not seen us! He would know us, even if we do nothim."

  Then with no less haste he seized Colonel Papillon by the arm andhurried him by the back passages through the office into theouter, public chamber, where the astonished crowd stood, silentand perturbed, awaiting explanation of their detention.

  "Quick, monsieur!" whispered the Chief; "point him out to me."

  The request was not unnecessary, for when Colonel Papillon wentforward, and, putting his hand on a man's shoulder, saying, "Mr.Quadling, I think," the police officer was scarcely able torestrain his surprise.

  The person thus challenged was very unlike any one he had seenbefore that day, Ripaldi most of all. The moustache was gone, theclothes were entirely changed; a pair of dark green spectacleshelped the disguise. It was strange indeed that Papillon had knownhim; but at the moment of recognition Quadling had removed hisglasses, no doubt that he might the better examine the object ofhis visit to the Morgue, that gruesome record of his own fellhandiwork.

  Naturally he drew back with well-feigned