A Siren

  CHAPTER III

  Guilty or not Guilty?

  Signor Fortini hurried home, when he quitted the Marchese Ludovico inthe little quiet street, in which they had talked together after theterrible sight they had together witnessed at the city gate, and shuthimself up in his private room to think. He was much moved anddistressed, more moved than the practised calm of the manner natural tohim, and the slow movements of old age, allowed to be visible.

  What a dreadful, what a miserable misfortune was this. A tragedy, ifever there was one, which would for ever strike down from their place anancient and noble family, whose merit and worth had from generation togeneration been the pride and the admiration of the entire city--atragedy which would come home as such to the heart of every human beingin Ravenna. Great heaven, what a fall!

  And this was the first outcome of the disastrous purpose of his oldfriend the Marchese. Truly he had felt that nought but evil--evilsmanifold and wide-spreading--could arise from so insane a line ofconduct. But he had been far from anticipating so overwhelming acalamity as the first result of it.

  Then, the deed itself! It would cause an outcry from one end of Italy tothe other. It would be a disgrace, and an opprobrium to the city formany a year. What! Ravenna invites, entices this hapless girl, who hadbeen the admiration of so many cities, to come within her walls; and inreturn for the delight which she had given them--murders her. Othercities vie with each other in doing honour to the gifted artist. Sheventures to Ravenna, and--is murdered.

  There was a bitterness in Signor Fortini's consideration of the matterfrom this point of view, which was more poignant than any other man thanan Italian would quite understand. For nowhere else do municipal pride,jealousy, and patriotism run so high.

  A foul and cruel murder had been done: so much was certain. SignorFortini had not the smallest hope that the death would be found to haveresulted from natural causes. And then came the consideration whetherthere could be any hope that, after all, the deed had been done by someother hand than that of the young Marchese di Castelmare.

  After thinking deeply for several minutes, the lawyer shook his head.That such a deed might have been done in the forest on the person of onefound sleeping there, whose appearance was such as to hold out theexpectation of booty to a plunderer, was possible--not very likely, butpossible. Possible enough to suppose that lawless and evil-disposedpersons might have been wandering there-depredators on the forest, whoexist in great numbers--smugglers making their way across the country byhidden paths, or what not? Possible enough that such a deed might havebeen done, and the perpetrators of it far away before the discovery ofthe body, away to the southward, and across the Apennine into Tuscany inthe space of a few hours. But all such possibilities were conclusivelynegatived by the certain fact that no plunder had been attempted, thatplunder could not have been the object of the murderer.

  Alarmed before they could carry their object into execution by theapproach of footsteps? Was this a plausible or a possible theory?

  No; for the poor Diva had valuable ornaments visible on her person, anenamelled gold watch at her girdle, a diamond pin or brooch at thefastening of her dress on her chest, to possess themselves of whichwould have needed less time than was required for the perpetration ofthe murder. It was wholly impossible to suppose, on any hypothesis, thatthe murder could have been committed for the sake of plunder, and thatthese ornaments could have been left untouched.

  It had been observed, and was noted--not in the report drawn up by theofficials at the gate, but in the more exact and detailed reportfurnished by the police on their taking of the body into theircharge--that the brooch, which has been mentioned, was unfastened, so asto be left hanging in the dress by its pin. But this circumstance didnot seem to be of much moment, as it might well have been that Biancaherself had unfastened it before falling asleep.

  No; it was but too clear, as the lawyer said to himself, that murder andnot robbery had been the object of the perpetrator of the crime.

  There was, it was true, nothing improbable in the story told by theMarchese Ludovico. That the girl should have been overpowered by sleep,after having passed the night at the ball, and then started on anexpedition so foreign to her usual habits, was abundantly likely. Thathe might have become tired of sitting still while she slept, and mighthave strayed away from her, not intending to quit her for more than afew minutes and a few yards, was also perfectly probable. That having sostrayed he might have been unable to find his way back again to the spotwhere he had left her, or to be certain whether he had found the samespot or not, would not seem at all unlikely to any one acquainted withthe Pineta. All this story was likely and natural enough.

  But--the motive--the inevitable inference from that terrible cui bonoquestion. For whom was it profitable, that this poor girl should be putto death? According to the fatal information, which, by his own account,he had received but a short time previously from the victim herself,information, the truth and accuracy of which were well known to thelawyer from the Marchese Lamberto himself, the whole future prospects inlife of the Marchese Ludovico depended on the life or death of thisunhappy woman.

  If the Marchese Lamberto carried out his insane intention of marrying LaBianca Lalli his nephew would become simply destitute. After having beenaccustomed, from the cradle to the age of four-and-twenty, to all thatriches could procure--after having lived in the sure expectation ofwealth up to an age when it was too late to think of making himselfcapable of earning a competence for himself in any conceivable manner,this marriage would take from him suddenly, and for ever, all suchprospect; and the death of the woman who had bewitched his uncle thusfatally would make all safe, for the Marchese Lamberto was not amarrying man--was, as all the town knew, the last man in the world tohave dreamed of taking a wife now at this time of his life.

  No; it was the fatal fascination, the witchery, the lures of this onewoman. Remove her, and all would be right.

  Ah! The mischief, the woe, the scandal, the disgrace, the irretrievablecalamity, and the misery, that this accursed folly of the MarcheseLamberto had caused. Ah! to think of all the sorrow and trouble thiswoman brought with her into the city when she was so triumphantlywelcomed within the walls by these two unhappy men--the uncle and thenephew.

  It was strongly and curiously characteristic of the Italian mind thatSignor Fortini, in coming to the conclusion that this deed must, beyondthe possibility of doubt, have been committed by the Marchese Ludovicoand none other, was mainly and specially moved by compassion for theperpetrator of the crime. There is something in this Italian mode ofviewing human events and human conduct curiously analogous to thatconception of mortal destinies on which the pathos of the old Greektragedy mainly rests.

  How cruel was the fate which had thus compelled the young man toperceive that the life of this girl and his own welfare wereincompatible!

  How dreadful the pitiless working of the great, blind, automatic,destiny-machine!

  To raise a murderous hand against the life of a sleeping girl--howdreadful! How great, therefore, must have been the suffering whichimpelled a man to do so!

  He had evidently been driven to desperation by the prospect of the utterand tremendous ruin that threatened him; and "desperation;" the absenceof all hope, is recognised, both by the popular mind of Italy and by itstheoretic theology, as a sufficient cause for any course of action. Itis especially taught by Roman Catholic theology that it is, above allthings, wicked so to act towards a man as to drive him to desperation;and the popular ethics invariably visit with deeper reprobation anycause of conduct which had tempted another man to make himself guilty ofa violent crime than it does the criminal himself.

  Thus, lawyer and law-abiding man as he was, with all the habits of along life between him and the possibility of his raising his own bandagainst the life of any man, Signor Fortini, as he mused on the tragedywhich had fallen out, felt more of compassion for the Marchese Ludovico,and more of anger against the folly of his uncle.

  T
his thing, too, which the Marchese Lamberto had announced his intentionof doing, sinned against all those virtues which, let the professions ofthe moral code say what they may, stand really highest in an Italianestimation. It was eminently unwise; it was imprudent; it wasindecorous; it was calculated to produce scandal; it would bringdisgrace upon a noble name; it was ridiculous; and, besides all this, itnecessarily drove another to "desperation."

  "A fool! An insane idiot! Worst of all fools--an old fool! To think thata man, who had stood so many years in the eyes of all men as he hadstood, should come to such a downfall. It would serve him no more thanright, if it were possible, that all the consequences of what had beendone should fall on his own head."

  Still, during all the musings which seemed to force him to theconclusion that the crime which had been committed was the deed of theMarchese Ludovico, the old lawyer did not lose sight of the idea whichhad been suggested to his mind by that exclamation of Ludovico on thefirst sight of the murdered woman. He did not, in truth, as yet thinkthat it was worth much; but he kept it safe at the bottom of his mind,ready for being produced if subsequent circumstances should seem to giveany value to it.

  After musing an hour while these thoughts passed through his mind, theold lawyer thought he would go as far as the Palazzo del Governo tolearn what steps had been taken, and whether--though he had very littledoubt on that point--his unfortunate young friend had been detained incustody.

  Signor Pietro Logarini, the head of the police, was an old acquaintanceof Signor Fortini,--as, indeed was pretty well everybody in any sort ofposition of authority in the city.

  "A bad business this, Signor Pietro," said Fortini, shaking his head.

  "The worst business, Signor Giovacchino, that has happened in Ravenna aslong as I can remember. It is very terrible."

  "Is the poor young fellow--?" Signor Fortini completed his question by amovement of his eyes, of one shoulder, and one thumb, quite asintelligible to the person he addressed as any words would have been.

  "Yes, of course. There was no help for it, you know."

  "Of course not. I suppose he came here as soon as he parted from me. Itso happened that we were together at the gate when the body was broughtthere," said Signor Fortini.

  "So I understand. You will be called on for your evidence as to hismanner on being confronted with it."

  "Of course; fortunately I have nothing to say on that point that can doany damage. He was much moved, naturally; we both were; but nothing morethan any man in his place would have been."

  "But the worst, the only fatal point in that confession of his, is thatthe girl told him of the Marchese Lamberto's intention of marrying her.Why in heaven's name did he let that slip out?"

  "My notion is that it just did slip out, as you say. An old hand, a manaccustomed to be at odds with the laws and the police, would have knownbetter. Did he make the same statement here?" asked Fortini, rathersurprised.

  "On my asking him, as I felt compelled to do, what special conversationhad passed between him and the girl that morning, he told me the fact,"replied the Commissary.

  "But what led you to ask him such a question?" said Fortini.

  "Ah!--something that had reached my ears. We are forced, you know,Signor Giovacchino, to have very long ears in our business. Hisconversation with you to-day was held in the street,--a bad place forsuch talk, Signor Giovacchino."

  "And not chosen by me for such a purpose, as you may imagine. Littlecould I guess what sort of confidence I was about to hear."

  "Not that it makes any difference. All that would have had to come out,you know, Signor Giovacchino."

  "Oh, quite so, quite so; no, no difference in the world. Did he come toyou immediately on leaving me?"

  "No; it would have been better upon the whole if he had done so. He wentfirst, it seems, to the residence of a lady, one Signorina PaolinaFoscarelli, being very desirous, he said, of not leaving her to hear ofthe business from other lips than his own. It is a pity, because hisabstaining from flight might have been something in his favour, if hehad not made it appear, that his remaining in the city might have beencaused by his desire to see again this Paolina. Do you know anythingabout her? I see by our books that she came here last autumn fromVenice. What is she like?"

  "It so happens that I never saw her. But I am told that she ispretty--very pretty--remarkably so." "Ah--h--h! that's what kept thepoor young fellow from running till it was too late to run. And yet,"continued the Commissary, pausing on his words, and tapping his foreheadwith his finger as if a new idea had just occurred to him--"and yet theyoung Don Juan goes out tete-a-tete into the forest with this othergirl."

  "Che volete?" returned the lawyer with a shrug. "Boys will be boys, andwomen--are women."

  "Yes; but the women sometimes don't quite like--" and the Commissaryallowed the remainder of his sentence to remain unspoken, beingapparently too much occupied with his thoughts to speak it.

  "I suppose the medical report can hardly have been made yet?" asked thelawyer, on whom the suppressed meaning of the Police Commissary's brokensentence was not lost.

  "No; there has not been time. It was too late in the afternoon.Professor Tomosarchi will make a post-mortem examination the first thingto-morrow morning; and I daresay we shall have his report in the courseof the day, if, as is most likely, there is nothing to call for morethan a superficial examination."

  "I shall be very anxious to hear the result of his investigation--very.I will look in, if you will allow me, to-morrow morning. And now I thinkI will go to that unfortunate man, the Marchese Lamberto. I should notbe at all surprised if I were to find that he had heard nothing aboutall this. Only think what it is I shall have to tell him--the womanabout whom he has been so mad as to have determined on sacrificing toher everything, fame, position, friends, respect,--everything--is dead!It is his monstrous proposal that has caused her death; and the samefolly has made the representative of his house a murderer and a felon.Think, Signor Pietro, what that man's feelings must be when thesetidings are told him."

  "Depend upon it, the whole city knows all about it by this time," saidthe Commissary.

  "But I think it exceedingly likely that he has not been out of hislibrary, all day," returned the lawyer.

  "But the servants will have heard the news. Ill news travels fast," saidthe Commissary, with a shrug.

  "Yes; but the servants will hardly have ventured to repeat such tidingsto him. Two to one it will fall to my lot to tell him. A pleasantoffice, isn't it, Signor Pietro?"

  "Not one I should like to undertake. Good-evening, Signor Giovacchino.If I don't see you to-morrow morning I will send you a couple of lineswith the result of the medical examination."

  "Thanks, Signor Pietro; but I will look in about the beginning of youroffice hours to-morrow morning. I feel as if I should be able to thinkof nothing else but this terrible business for some time to come. Felicesera."

  And so the old lawyer went off to call upon his client, the MarcheseLamberto, truly dreading the interview, and yet not without a certaindegree of satisfaction, and a kind of I-told-you-so feeling in theprospect of announcing to the unhappy Marchese those terriblefirst-fruits of the disastrous purpose, in condemnation of which thelawyer had spoken so strongly a few hours ago.