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 arrests for stabbing affrays. Italians, like Greeks, are a dangerous lot when their blood is up." Then he added: "Personally, it seems to me that the murdered man was enticed from London to that spot and coolly done away with—from some motive of revenge, most probably."
"Most probably," I said. "A vendetta, perhaps. I live in Italy, and therefore know the Italians well," I added.
I had given him my card, and told him with whom I was staying.
"Where were you yesterday, sir?" he inquired presently.
