"Disappeared!" I echoed. "And have you not made any report to the police?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"For reasons known only to myself I did not wish the police to pry into my private affairs."
"I know. Because you were once convicted at Lucca of using a knife—eh? I recollect quite well that affair—a love affair, was it not?"
"Yes, Signor Commendatore. But I was a youth then—a mere boy."
"Then tell me the circumstances In which Armida has disappeared," I urged, for I saw quite plainly that his sudden meeting with me had upset him, and that he was trying to hold back from me some story which he was bursting to tell.
"Well, signore," he said at last in a low tone of confidence, "I don't like to trouble you with my private affairs after those untruths I told you when we last met."
"Go on," I said. "Tell me the truth."
After the exciting incidents of our last meeting, I was half inclined to doubt him.
"The truth is, Signor Commendatore, that my wife has mysteriously disappeared. Last Saturday, at eleven o'clock, she was talking over the garden wall with a neighbor and was then dressed to go out. She apparently went out, but from that moment no one has seen or heard of her."
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him the ghastly truth, yet so strange was the circumstance that his own double, even to the mole upon his face, should be lying dead and buried in Scotland that I hesitated to relate what I knew.
"She spoke English, I suppose?"
"She could make herself understood very well," he said with a sigh, and I saw a heavy, thoughtful look upon his brow. That he was really devoted to her, I knew. With the Italian of whatever station in life, love is all-consuming—it is either perfect love or genuine hatred. The Tuscan character is one of two extremes.
I glanced across the road, and saw that the detective who had ordered his chop and coffee had stopped to light his pipe and was watching us.
"Have you any idea where your wife is, or what has induced her to go away from home? Perhaps you had some words!"
"Words, signore!" he echoed. "Why, we were the happiest pair in all London. No unkind word ever passed between us. There seems absolutely no reason whatever why she should go away without wishing me a word of farewell."
"But why haven't you told the police?"
"For reasons that I have already stated. I prefer to make inquiries for myself."
"And in what have your inquiries resulted?"
"Nothing—absolutely nothing," he said gravely.
"You do not suspect any plot? I recollect that night in Lambeth you told me that you had enemies?"
"Ah! so I have, signore—and so have you!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "Yes, my poor Armida may have been entrapped by them."
"And if entrapped, what then?"
"Then they would kill her with as little compunction as they would a fly," he said. "Ah! you do not know the callousness of those people. I only hope and pray that she may have escaped and is in hiding somewhere, and will arrive unexpectedly and give me a startling surprise. She delights in startling me," he added with a laugh.
Poor fellow, I thought, she would never again be able to startle him. She had actually fallen a victim just as he dreaded.
"Then you think she must have been called away from home by some urgent message?" I suggested.
"By the manner in which she left things, it seemed as though she went away hurriedly. There were five sovereigns in a drawer that we had saved for the rent, and she took them with her."
I paused again, hesitating whether to tell him the terrible truth. I recollected that the body had disappeared, therefore what proof had I of my allegation that she had been murdered?
"Tell me, Olinto," I said as we moved forward again in the direction of Paddington Station, "have you any knowledge of a man named Leithcourt?"
He started suddenly and looked at me.
"I have heard of him," he answered very lamely.
"And of his daughter—Muriel?"
"And also of her. But I am not acquainted with them—nor, to tell the truth, do I wish to be."
"Why?"
"Because they are enemies of mine—bitter enemies."
His declaration was strange, for it threw some light upon the tragedy in Rannoch Wood.
"And of your wife also?"
"I do not know that," he responded. "My enemies are my wife's also, I suppose."
"You have not told me the secret of that dastardly attempt upon me when we last met," I said in a low voice. "Why not tell me the truth? I surely ought to know who my enemies really are, so as to be warned against any future plot."
