The Sign of the Seven Sins
“The other? This insane perversity of human nature gets hold of us
whether we will or not. It makes us for the time ignore all that is
best in ourselves and in others--it is part of us. Though we know
well it is all within ourselves, it will cause our tears to flow and
our sorrows to pile up. It is all a fictitious substance with possibly
a mint of happiness lying below. We are conscious of it all, but the
insanity makes us ignore it for so long that the little imp completes
its work, and the opportunity is lost. But why are we moralizing?” she
added. “Let’s try and get to sleep, shall we?”
To this I willingly acquiesced, for, truth to tell, I did not give
credence to a single word of the rather romantic story she had related
regarding herself, her friends, and her jealous guardian. I had met
women of her stamp many times before. The only way to make them feel is
to tell them the truth, devoid of all flattery.
She struck me as a woman with a past--her whole appearance was of such.
Now a woman with a checkered past and an untrammelled present is always
more or less interesting to women as well as men. She is a mystery.
The mystery is that men cannot quite believe that a smart woman with
knowledge cut loose from all fetters is proof against flattery. She
“queens” it while they study her. Interest in a woman is only one step
from love for her--a fact of which we of the fairer sex are very well
aware.
Ulrica had once expressed an opinion that pasts were not so bad if it
were not for some of the memories that cling to them, not, of course,
that the past of either of us had been anything out of the ordinary.
Memories that cling to others or the hint of a “past” certainly make
you of interest to others, especially to men, and a menace to the
imagination of other women; but the memories that hover about yourself
are sometimes like truths--brutal.
Memories! As I lay there upon my hard, narrow bed, being whirled
through those suffocating tunnels in the cliffs beside the
Mediterranean, I could not somehow get away from memory. The story this
mysterious woman had related had awakened all the sad recollections
of my own life. It seemed as though an avalanche of cruel truths
confronted my mental vision. At every instant those truths struck a
blow that left a scar deep and unsightly as any made by the knife.
There was tragedy in every one. The first that came to me was of a
day long ago. Ah me! I was young then, a child in years, a novice in
experience, on that day when I admitted to Ernest my deep and fervent
affection. How brief it all had been! I had, alas! now awakened to
the hard realities of life and to the anguish the heart is capable of
holding. The sweetest part of love, the absolute trust, had died long
ago. My heart had lost its lightness never to return, for his love for
me was dead. His fond tenderness of those by-gone days was, alas! only
a memory.
Yet he must have loved me! With me it had been the love of my
womanhood--the love that is born with youth, that overlooks, forgives,
and loves again; that gives friendship, truth, and loyalty. What, I
wondered, were his thoughts when we had encountered each other at Monte
Carlo? He showed neither interest nor regret. No, he had cast me aside,
leaving me to endure that crushing sorrow and brain-torture which had
been the cause of my long illness. He remembered nothing. To him our
love was a mere incident. Of a verity, memory is the scar of truth’s
cruel wound.
I lay there wondering to myself if ever again I should feel any
uplifting joy or any heartrending sorrow. Ah! if women could only
outgrow the child part of their natures, hearts would not bleed so
much. One of the greatest surprises in life is to discover how much
sorrow the heart can bear, how acutely it can ache, how it can be
strained to the utmost tension, crowded with agony, and yet not break.
This is moralizing and smacks of sentiment, but it is nature--after you
get acquainted with it.
The train roared on, the woman above me slept soundly, and with the
tears starting in my eyes I tried hard to burn the bridges into the
past and seek forgetfulness in sleep. The process of burning, alas!
can never be accomplished, thanks to one’s too retentive memory, but
slumber came to me at last, and I must have dozed some time, for when
I awoke we were in Genoa, and daylight was already showing through the
chinks of the crimson blinds.
But the woman who had told the curious story slept on. Probably the
concoction of so much romantic fiction had wearied her brain. The story
she had related could not, of course, be true. If she were really old
Keppel’s ward, then what motive had he in concealing her in that gilded
deck-house which was believed to be stored with curios? Who too was
that unseen man whom he had apparently taken into his confidence--the
man who had promised assistance by blowing up the yacht with all hands?
I shuddered at thought of that wicked, dastardly plot.
Yet Keppel had been declared by this unknown person to be the murderer
of the woman now lying in the berth above me. Why?
The train was at a stand-still, and I rose to peep out. As I turned
to re-enter my berth again my eyes fell upon the sleeping form of my
companion. Her face was turned towards me, and her bodice, unhooked,
disclosed a delicate white throat and neck.
I bent quickly to examine more closely what I saw there. Upon the
throat were two dark marks, one on either side,--the marks of a human
finger and a thumb,--the exact counterpart of those puzzling marks
found upon the throat of poor Reggie.
CHAPTER XVI
IS MORE ASTONISHING
So still, so pale, so bloodless were my mysterious companion’s lips,
that at the first moment I feared she might be dead. Her appearance
was that of a corpse, but after careful watching I saw that she was
breathing, lightly but regularly, and thus I became satisfied.
The curious marks, as though a man’s hands had endeavored to strangle
her, were of a pale yellowish brown, like disappearing bruises, the one
narrow and small where the finger had pressed, the other wide and long,
the mark of the thumb.
Again I returned to my berth, and as the express again thundered on its
way northward towards Turin, I tried to form some theory to account for
my discovery of those curious marks upon her.
The hours of early morning crept slowly by. The sun rose over the
beautiful vine-lands of Asti as we whirled forward towards the great
Alpine barrier which happily divides Italy from France; its rays
penetrated into our narrow chamber, but the sleeping woman stirred
not. She seemed as one in a trance.
Close beside me lay her dress-skirt. My eyes had been fixed upon it
a hundred times during the night, and it now occurred to me that by
searching its pocket I might discover something that would give a clue
to her real identity. Therefore, after ascertaining that she was still
unconscious of things about her, I slowly turned over the skirt, and
placing my hand in the pocket drew out the contents.
The first object I opened was a silver-mounted purse of crocodile
leather, hoping to discover her visiting-card therein. But in this
I was disappointed. The purse contained only a few francs in French
money, a couple of receipts from shops in Paris, and a tiny scrap of
card an inch square with several numerals scribbled upon it.
The numbers were unintelligible, but when I chanced to turn the piece
of thin pasteboard over its reverse gave me an instant clue. It was a
piece of one of those red-and-black ruled cards used by gamblers at
Monte Carlo to register the numbers at roulette. This woman, whoever
she was, had evidently been to Monte Carlo, and the numbers scribbled
there were those which she believed would bring her fortune. Every
woman gambler has her strong-rooted fancies, just as she has her
amusing superstitions, and her belief in unlucky days and unlucky
croupiers.
Two facts were plain. First, that she bore marks upon her which were
the exact counterpart of those found on poor Reggie; secondly, that she
herself had been to Monte Carlo.
Her handkerchief was of fine lawn, but bore no mark, while the crumpled
piece of paper--without which no woman’s pocket is complete--proved on
examination to contain only an address of some person in Brussels.
I therefore carefully replaced them all, having failed to ascertain her
name, and then dozed again.
She was already up and dressed when I awoke.
“Ah!” she laughed, “I see you’ve been sleeping well. I’ve had a famous
night; I always sleep well when I travel. But I have a secret. A doctor
friend of mine gave me some little tabloids of some narcotic,--I don’t
know its name,--and if I take one I sleep quite well for six or seven
hours at a stretch.”
“I awoke once, and you were quite sound asleep.”
“Oh, yes,” she laughed. “But I wonder where we are?”
I looked forth and recognized the name of some small station through
which we dashed.
“We’re nearing Turin,” I responded. Then suddenly recollecting that in
an hour or so I should be compelled to face old Keppel in the corridor,
I resolved on a plan upon which I immediately proceeded to act. “I
don’t feel at all well this morning,” I added. “I think I shall go to
sleep again.”
“I’ve some smelling-salts here,” she said, looking at me with an
expression of sympathy. And she took out a small silver-mounted bottle
from her little reticule.
I took it and sniffed it gladly with a word of thanks. If I did not
wish to meet Keppel, I should be obliged to remain in that stuffy
little den for another twenty hours or so--that is, if they intended to
go on to Paris. The prospect was certainly not inviting, for a single
night in a Continental sleeping-car over a badly laid line gets on
one’s nerves terribly. Compelled, however, to feign illness, I turned
in again at Turin, and while my companion went forth and rejoined the
man who had been my host the conductor brought me the usual glass of
hot coffee and a roll.
“I am not well,” I explained to the man when he handed it to me. “Are
you going through to Paris?”
“Sisignorina.”
“Then will you see that I’m not disturbed, either at the frontier or
anywhere else?”
“Certainly--if the Signorina has the keys of her baggage.”
“I have no baggage,” I responded. “Only see that I get something to
eat, and buy me a novel--Italian--French--anything will do, and also
some newspapers.”
“Sisignorina.” And the door was closed.
Five minutes later, just as the train was gliding out of Turin, the man
returned with a couple of novels and half-a-dozen of those four-paged
badly printed Italian newspapers, and with them I managed to while
away the long, tedious hours as we sped through Susa and the beautiful
Alpine valleys.
From time to time my companion looked in to see how I was, offering to
do anything for me that she could; then she returned to old Keppel, who
was sitting on one of the little flap-seats in the corridor smoking.
“The woman in with me is rather young and quite charming,” I heard her
say to him. “She’s been taken queer this morning. I expect the heat has
upset her, poor thing! The berths here are very hot and close.”
“Horribly! I was nearly asphyxiated,” he answered.
Then, about half-an-hour later, I recognized his voice again. He
was evidently standing with his companion close to the door of my
compartment.
“We shall be in Paris about half-past eight to-morrow morning, it
seems,” he said.
“And the Vispera will be awaiting you at Naples?” she laughed.
“Davis is quite used to my erratic movements,” he answered. “A
reputation for eccentricity is very useful sometimes.”
“But shall you rejoin her?”
He hesitated.
“I think it is most unlikely,” he responded. “I’ve had enough of