Farewell Nikola Part 24

"I cannot say," she replied. "I am only certain that I must remain for a little while longer. You can have no idea what I have suffered lately.

Bear with me, Sir Richard." Here she lifted a face of piteous entreaty to me, which I was powerless to resist, adding, "I implore you not to be angry with me."

"Is it likely that I should be angry with you, Miss Gertrude?" I replied. "Why should I be? If you really desire to remain for a little longer there is nothing to prevent it. But you must not allow yourself to become ill again. Believe me it is only your imagination that is playing tricks with you."

"Ah! you do not know everything," she answered. "Every night I have such terrible dreams that I have come to dread going to bed."

I thought of my own dream on the previous night, and could well understand how she felt. After her last remark she was silent for some moments. That there was something still to come, I could see, but what it was I had no more idea than a child. At last she spoke.

"Sir Richard," she said, "would you mind very much if I were to ask you a most important question? I scarcely like to do so, but I know that you are my friend, and that you will give me good advice."

"I will endeavour to do so," I replied. "What is the question you wish to ask me?"

"It is about my engagement," she replied. "You know how good and unselfish the Duke is, and how truly he believes in me. I could not bear to bring trouble upon him, but in love there should be no secrets--nothing should be hidden one from the other. Yet I feel that I am hiding so much--can you understand what I mean?"

"In a great measure," I answered, "but I should like to do so thoroughly. Miss Gertrude, if I may hazard a guess, I should say that you have been dreaming about Doctor Nikola again?"

"Yes," she answered after a moment's hesitation. "Absurd though it may be, I can think of no one else. He weighs upon my spirits like lead, and yet I know that I should be grateful to him for all he did for me when I was so ill. But for him I should not be alive now."

"I am afraid that you have been allowing the thought of your recent danger to lie too heavily upon your mind," I continued. "Remember that this is the nineteenth century, and that there are no such things as you think Nikola would have you believe."

"When I know that there are?" she asked, looking at me reproachfully.

"Ah, Sir Richard," she continued, "if you knew all that I do you would pity me. But no one will ever know, and I cannot tell them. But one thing is quite certain. I must stay in Venice for the present--happen what may. Something tells me so, day and night. And when I think of the Duke my heart well-nigh breaks for fear I should bring trouble upon him."

I did my best to comfort her; promised that if she really desired to remain in Venice I would arrange it for her, and by so doing committed myself to a policy that I very well knew, when I came to consider it later, was not expedient, and very far from being judicious. Regarded seriously in a sober commonplace light, the whole affair seems too absurd, and yet at the time nothing could possibly have been more real or earnest. When she had heard me out, she thanked me very prettily for the interest I had taken, and then with a little sigh, that went to my heart, left the room. Later in the afternoon I broke the news to my wife, and told her of the promise I had given Gertrude.

"But what does it all mean, d.i.c.k?" she asked, looking at me with startled eyes. "What is it she fears will happen if she goes away from Venice?"

"That is what I cannot get her to say," I replied. "Indeed I am not altogether certain that she knows herself. It's a most perplexing business, and I wish to goodness I had never had anything to do with it.

The better plan, I think, would be to humour her, keep her as cheerful as we can, and when the proper time arrives, get her away from Venice and home to England as quickly as we can."

My wife agreed with me on this point, and our course of action was thereupon settled.

Later in the afternoon I made a resolution. My own suspicions concerning the wretched Martinos were growing so intolerable that I could bear them no longer. The memory of the dream I had had on the previous night was never absent from my thoughts, and I felt that unless I could set matters right once and for all, and convince myself that they were not as I suspected with Anstruther's friend, I should be unable to close my eyes when next I went to bed. For this reason I determined to set off to the Palace Revecce at once, and to have an interview with Nikola in the hope of being able to extort some information from him.

"Perhaps after all," I argued, "I am worrying myself unnecessarily.

There may be no connection between Martinos and that South American."

I determined, however, to set the matter at rest that afternoon.

Accordingly at four o'clock I made an excuse and departed for the Rio del Consiglio.

It was a dark, cloudy afternoon, and the house, as I approached it, looked drearier, if such a thing were possible, than I had ever seen it. I disembarked from my gondola at the steps, and having bade the man wait for me, which he did on the other side of the street, I rang the bell. The same old servant whom I remembered having seen on a previous occasion answered it, and informed me that his master was not at home, but that he expected him every minute. I determined to wait for him and ascended the stairs to his room. The windows were open, and from where I stood I could watch the gondolier placidly eating his bread and onions on the other side of the street. So far as I could see there was no change in the room itself. The centre table as usual was littered with papers and books, that near the window was covered with chemical apparatus, while the old black cat was fast asleep upon the couch on the other side. The oriental rug, described in another place, covered the ominous trap-door so that no portion of it could be seen. I was still standing at the window looking down upon the ca.n.a.l below, when the door at the further end softly opened and a face looked in at me. Good heavens! I can even now feel the horror which swept over me. It was the countenance of Don Martinos, but so changed, even from what it had been when I had seen him in the Rio del Barcaroli, that I scarcely recognized it. It was like the face of an animal and of a madman, if such could be combined. He looked at me and then withdrew, closing the door behind him, only to re-open it a few moments later. Having apparently made sure that I was alone, he crept in, and, crossing the room, approached me.

For a moment I was at a loss how to act. I was not afraid that the poor wretch might do me any mischief, but my whole being shrank from him with a physical revulsion beyond all description in words. I can understand now something of the dislike my wife and the Duke declared they entertained for him. On tip-toe, with his finger to his lips, as if to enjoin silence, he crept towards me, muttering something in Spanish that I could not understand; then in English he continued--

"Hush, Senor, cannot you see them?"

He pointed his hand in various directions as if he could see the figures of men and women moving about the apartment. Once he bowed low as if to some imaginary dignitary, drawing back at the same time, as if to permit him to pa.s.s. Then turning to me he continued, "Do you know who that is?

No! Then I will tell you. Senor, that is the most n.o.ble Admiral Revecce, the owner of this house."

Then for a short time he stood silent, picking feebly at his fingers and regarding me ever and anon from the corner of his eye. Suddenly there was a sharp quick step in the corridor outside, the handle of the door turned, and Nikola entered the room. As his glance fell upon the wretched being at my side a look not unlike that I had seen in my dream flashed into his countenance. It was gone again, however, as suddenly as it had come, and he was advancing to greet me with all his old politeness. It was then that the folly of my errand was borne in upon me. Even if my suspicions were correct what could I do, and what chance could I hope to have of being able to induce Nikola to confide in me?

Meanwhile he had pointed to the door, and Martinos, trembling in every limb, was slinking towards it like a whipped hound. At that moment I made a discovery that I confess came near to depriving me of my presence of mind altogether. You can judge of its value for yourself when I say, that extending to the lobe of Nikola's left ear half-way down and across his throat was a newly-made scar, just such an one, in fact, as would be made by a hand with sharp finger-nails clutching at it. Could my dream have been true, after all?

"I cannot tell you how delighted I am to see you, my dear Sir Richard,"

said Nikola as he seated himself. "I understood that you had returned to Venice."

Having out-grown the desire to learn how Nikola had become aware of anything, I merely agreed that we had returned, and then took the chair he offered me.

When all the circ.u.mstances are taken into consideration, I really think that that moment was certainly the most embarra.s.sing of my life.

Nikola's eyes were fixed steadily upon mine, and I could see in them what was almost an expression of malicious amus.e.m.e.nt. As usual he was making capital out of my awkwardness, and as I knew that I could do no good, I felt that there was nothing for it but for me to submit. Then the miserable Spaniard's face rose before my mind's eye, and I felt that I could not abandon him, without an effort, to what I knew would be his fate. Nikola brought me up to the mark even quicker than I expected.

"It is very plain," he said, with a satirical smile playing round his thin lips, "that you have come with the intention of saying something important to me. What is it?"

At this I rose from my chair and went across the room to where he was sitting. Placing my hand upon his shoulder I looked down into his face, took courage, and began.

"Doctor Nikola," I said, "you and I have known each other for many years now. We have seen some strange things together, one of us perhaps less willingly than the other. But I venture to think, however, that we have never stood on stranger or more dangerous ground than we do to-night."

"I am afraid I am scarcely able to follow your meaning," he replied.

I knew that this was not the case, but I was equally convinced that to argue the question with him would be worse than useless.

"Do you remember the night on which you told me that story concerning the woman who lived in this house, who was betrayed by the Spaniard, and who died on that Spanish island?" I asked.

He rose hurriedly from his chair and went to the window. I heard him catch his breath, and knew that I had moved him at last.

"What of it?" he inquired, turning on me sharply as he spoke.

"Only that I have come to see you concerning the _denouement_ of that story," I answered. "I have come because I cannot possibly stay away.

You have no idea how deeply I have been thinking over this matter. Do you think I cannot see through it and read between the lines? You told it to me because in some inscrutable fas.h.i.+on of your own you had become aware that Don Martinos would bring a letter of introduction to me from my friend Anstruther. Remember it was I who introduced him to you! Do you think that I did not notice the expression that came into your face whenever you looked at him? Later my suspicions were aroused. The Don was a Spaniard, he was rich, and he had made the mistake of admitting that while he had been in Chili he had never been in Equinata. You persuaded me to bring him to this house, and here you obtained your first influence over him."

"My dear Hatteras," said Nikola, "you are presupposing a great deal. And you get beyond my depth. Don't you think it would be wiser if you were to stick to plain facts?"

"My suppositions are stronger than my facts," I answered. "You laid yourself out to meet him, and your influence over him became greater every day. It could be seen in his face. He was fascinated, and could not escape. Then he began to gamble, and found his money slipping through his fingers like water through a sieve."

"You have come to the conclusion, then, that I am responsible for that also?"

"I do not say that it was your doing exactly," I said, gathering courage from the calmness of his manner and the attention he was giving me. "But it fits in too well with the whole scheme to free you entirely from responsibility. Then look at the change that began to come over the man himself. His faculties were leaving him one by one, being wiped out, just as a school-boy wipes his lesson from a slate. If he had been an old man I should have said that it was the commencement of his second childhood; but he is still a comparatively young man."

"You forget that while he had been gambling he had also been drinking heavily. May not debauchery tell its own tale?"

"It is not debauchery that has brought about this terrible change. Who knows that better than yourself? After the duel, which you providentially prevented, we went to Rome for a fortnight. On the afternoon of our return I met him near the telegraph-office. At first glance I scarcely recognized him, so terrible was the change in his appearance. If ever a poor wretch was on the verge of idiotcy he was that one. Moreover, he informed me that he was living with you. Why should the fact that he was so doing produce such a result? I cannot say! I dare not try to understand it! But, for pity's sake, Nikola, by all you hold dear I implore you to solve the riddle. Last night I had a dream!"

"You are perhaps a believer in dreams?" he remarked very quietly, as if the question scarcely interested him.

"This dream was of a description such as I have never had in my life before," I answered, disregarding the sneer, and then told it to him, increasing rather than lessening the abominable details. He heard me out without moving a muscle of his face, and it was only when I had reached the climax and paused that he spoke.

"This is a strange rigmarole you tell me," he said. "Fortunately you confess that it was only a dream."

"Doctor Nikola," I cried, "it was more than a dream. To prove it, let me ask you how you received that long scratch that shows upon your neck and throat?"