The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent Love
Next day the body would surely be found; then the whole countryside
would be filled with horror and surprise. Was it possible that
Leithcourt, that calm, well-groomed, distinguished-looking man, held any
knowledge of the ghastly truth? No. His manner as he stood in the hall
chatting gayly with me was surely not that of a man with a guilty
secret. I became firmly convinced that although the tragedy affected him
very closely, and that it had occurred at the spot which he had each day
visited for some mysterious purpose, yet up to the present he was in
ignorance of what had transpired.
But who was the woman? Was she young or old?
A thousand times I regretted bitterly that I had no matches with me so
that I might examine her features.
One sudden thought that struck me as I sat there at table caused me to
lay down my fork and pause in breathless bewilderment. Was the victim
that sweet-faced young girl whose photograph had been so ruthlessly cast
from its frame and destroyed? The theory was a weird one, but was it the
truth?
I longed for the coming of the dawn when the Rannoch keepers would most
certainly discover her. Then at least I should know the truth, for I
might go and see the body out of curiosity without arousing any
suspicion.
I tried to play my usual game of billiards with my uncle, but my hand
was so unsteady that the old gentleman began to chaff me.
"It's the gun, I suppose," I remarked. "I've been carrying it all day,
and am tired out. I walked all the way home from Crossburn."
"The Carmichaels are very thick with the Leithcourts, I hear," my uncle
remarked. "Strange they didn't ask Leithcourt to their shoot."
"They did, but he'd got another engagement--over at Kenmure Castle, I
think."
I retired to my room that night full of fevered apprehension. Had I
acted rightly in not returning to that lonely spot on the brow of the
hill? Had I done as a man should do in keeping the tragic secret to
myself?
I opened my window and gazed away across the dark Nithsdale, where, in
the distant gloom, the black line of wood loomed up against the stormy
sky. The stars were no longer shining and the rain clouds had gathered.
I stood with my face turned to the dark indistinct spot that held the
secret, lost in wonderment.
At last I closed the window and turned in, but no sleep came to my
eyes, so full was my mind of the startling events of those past few
months and of that gruesome discovery I had made.
Had the fugitive actually recognized me? Probably my voice when I had
called out had betrayed me. Hour after hour I lay puzzling, trying to
arrive at some solution of that intricate problem which now presented
itself. Muriel could tell me what I wished to know. Of that I was
certain. Yet she dared not speak. Some inexpressible terror held her
dumb--she was affianced to the man Martin Woodroffe.
Again I rose, lit the gas, and tried to read a novel. But I could not
concentrate my thoughts, which were ever wandering to that strange
mystery of the wood. At six I shaved, descended, and went out with the
dogs for a short walk; but on returning I heard of nothing unusual, and
was compelled to remain inactive until near mid-day.
I was crossing the stable-yard where I had gone to order the carriage
for my aunt, when an English groom, suddenly emerging from the
harness-room, touched his cap, saying--
"Have you 'eard, sir, of the awful affair up yonder?"
"Of what?" I asked quickly.
"Well, sir, there seems to have been a murder last night up in Rannoch
Wood," said the man quickly. "Holden, the gardener, has just come back
from that village and says that Mr. Leithcourt's under-gamekeeper as he
was going home at five this morning came upon a dead body."
"A dead body!" I exclaimed, feigning great surprise.
"Yes, sir--a youngish man. He'd been stabbed to the heart."
"A man!"
"Yes, sir--so Holden says."
"Call Holden. I'd like to know all he's heard," I said. And presently,
when the gardener emerged from the grape-house, I sought of him all the
particulars he had gathered.
"I don't know very much, sir," was the man's reply. "I went into the inn
for a glass of beer at eleven, as I always do, and heard them talking
about it. A young man was murdered last night up in Rannoch Wood. The
gamekeeper thought at first there'd been a fight among poachers, but
from the dead man's clothes they say he isn't a poacher at all, but a
stranger in this district."
"The body was that of a man, then?" I asked, trying to conceal my utter
bewilderment.
"Yes--about thirty, they say. The police have taken him to the mortuary
at Dumfries, and the detectives are up there now looking at the spot,
they say."
A man! And yet the body I found was that of a woman--that I could swear.
After lunch I took the dog-cart and drove alone into Dumfries.
When I inquired of the police-constable on duty at the town mortuary to
be allowed to view the body of the murdered man, he regarded me, I
thought, with considerable suspicion. My request was an unusual one.
Nevertheless, he took me up a narrow alley, unlocked a door, and I found
myself in the cold, gloomy chamber of death. From a small dingy window
above the light fell upon an object lying upon a large slab of gray
stone and covered with a soiled sheet.
The sight was ghastly and gruesome; the body lay there awaiting the
official inquiry into the cause of death. The silence of the tomb was
unbroken, save for the heavy tread of the policeman, who having removed
his helmet in the presence of the dead, lifted the end of the sheet,
revealing to me a white, hard-set face, with closed eyes and dropped
jaw.
I started back as my eyes fell upon the dead countenance. I was entirely
unprepared for such a revelation. The truth staggered me.
The victim was the man who had acted as my friend--the Italian waiter,
Olinto.
I advanced and peered into the thin inanimate features, scarce able to
realize the actual fact. But my eyes had not deceived me. Though death
distorts the facial expression of every man, I had no difficulty in
identifying him.
"You recognize him, sir?" remarked the officer. "Who is he? Our people
are very anxious to know, for up to the present moment they haven't
succeeded in establishing his identity."
I bit my lips. I had been an arrant fool to betray myself before that
man. Yet having done so, I saw that any attempt to conceal my knowledge
must of necessity reflect upon me.
"I will see your inspector," I answered with as much calmness as I could
muster. "Where has the poor fellow been wounded?"
"Through the heart," responded the constable, as turning the sheet
further down he showed me the small knife wound which had penetrated the
victim's jacket and vest full in the chest.
"This is the weapon," he added, taking from a shelf close by a long,
thin poignard with an ivory handle, which he handed to me.
In an instant I recognized what it was, and how deadly. It was an old
Florentine _misericordia_, a long thin, triangular blade, a quarter of
an inch wide at its greatest width, tapering to a needle-point, with a
hilt of yellow ivory, the most deadly and fatal of all the daggers and
poignards of the Middle Ages. The blade being sharp on three angles
produced a wound that caused internal hemorrhage and which never
healed--hence the name given to it by the Florentines.
It was still blood-stained, but as I took the deadly thing in my hand I
saw that its blade was beautifully damascened, a most elegant specimen
of a medieval arm. Yet surely none but an Italian would use such a
weapon, or would aim so truly as to penetrate the heart.
And yet the person struck down was a woman, and not a man!
A wound from a _misericordia_ always proves fatal, because the shape of
the blade cuts the flesh into little flaps which, on withdrawing the
knife, close up and prevent the blood from issuing forth. At the same
time, however, no power can make them heal again. A blow from such a
weapon is as surely fatal as the poisoned poignard of the Borgia or the
Medici.
I handed the stiletto back to the man without comment. My resolve was to
say as little as possible, for I had no desire to figure publicly at the
inquiry, and consequently negative all my own efforts to solve the
mystery of the Leithcourts and of Martin Woodroffe.
I returned to where the figure was lying so ghastly and motionless, and
looked again for the last time upon the dead face of the man who had
served me so well, and yet who had enticed me so nearly to my death. In
the latter incident there was a deep mystery. He had relented at the
last moment, just in time to save me from my secret enemies.
Could it be that my enemies were his? Had he fallen a victim by the same
hand that had attempted so ingeniously to kill me?
Why had Leithcourt gone so regularly up to Rannoch Wood? Was it in
order to meet the man who was to be entrapped and killed? What was
Olinto Santini doing so far from London, if he had not come expressly to
meet someone in secret?
As I glanced down at the cold, inanimate countenance upon which mystery
was written, I became seized by regret. He had been a faithful and
honest servant, and even though he had enticed me to that fatal house in
Lambeth, yet I recollected his words, how he had done so under
compulsion. I remembered, too, how he had implored me not to prejudge
him before I became aware of the full facts.
With my own hand I re-covered the face with the sheet, and inwardly
resolved to avenge the dastardly crime.
I regretted that I was compelled to reveal the dead man's name to the
police, yet I saw that to make some statement was now inevitable, and
therefore I accompanied the constable to the inspector's office some
distance across the town.
Having been introduced to the big, fair-haired man in a rough tweed
suit, who was apparently directing the inquiries into the affair, he
took me eagerly into a small back room and began to question me. I was,
however, wary not to commit myself to anything further than the
identification of the body.
"The fact is," I said confidentially, "you must omit me from the
witnesses at the inquest."
"Why?" asked the detective suspiciously.
"Because if it were known that I have identified him, all chance of
getting at the truth will at once vanish," I answered. "I have come here
to tell you in strictest confidence who the poor fellow really is."
"Then you know something of the affair?" he said, with a strong Highland
accent.
"I know nothing," I declared. "Nothing except his name."
"H'm. And you say he's a foreigner--an Italian--eh?"
"He was in my service in Leghorn for several years, and on leaving me he
came to London and obtained an engagement as waiter in a restaurant. His
father lived in Leghorn; he was doorkeeper at the Prefecture."
"But why was he here, in Scotland?"
"How can I tell?"
"You know something of the affair. I mean that you suspect somebody, or
you would have no objection to giving evidence at the inquiry."
"I have no suspicions. To me the affair is just as much of an enigma as
to you," I hastened at once to explain. "My only fear is that if the
assassin knew that I had identified him he would take care not to betray
himself."
"You therefore think he will betray himself?"
"I hope so."
"By the fact that the man was attacked with an Italian stiletto, it
would seem that his assailant was a fellow-countryman," suggested the
detective.
"The evidence certainly points to that," I replied.
"You don't happen to be aware of anyone--any foreigner, I mean--who was,
or might be his enemy?"
I responded in the negative.
"Ah," he went on, "these foreigners are always fighting among themselves
and using knives. I did ten years' service in Edinburgh and made lots of