THE GIRL AT THE GRAVE
The beautiful little Russian church was filled to the very doors for the solemn and stately ceremonial of Paula Rawson’s funeral service. Many representatives of royalty were there, Lord Warrington and several of his staff, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, peers—everyone who was “anyone” in the innermost circle of London society seemed to be present, except Sir Robert Rawson himself.
And yet to Austin Starr’s acutely sympathetic and impressionable mind it seemed that there were no mourners there; that all these distinguished people had assembled as a mere conventional duty, an expression of conventional respect and sympathy for the bereaved husband; that they cared nothing for the dead woman lying there in her coffin, under the magnificent purple pall. She was even lonelier in death than she had been in life.
The impression was confirmed when at last the service was over, and the congregation emerged into the gloom and mud of the streets, for it was a damp, dark, dreary morning.
Crowds of sightseers thronged the pavements outside, waiting and watching, palpably animated by their curiosity to witness one of the acts in this sensational drama of real life that had already proved so thrilling, and that had yet to be played out.
There were more crowds outside the cemetery gates, through which only members of the funeral party were admitted; and open expressions of surprise and disappointment were exchanged at the smallness of the cortège: only a couple of motor-cars and some half-dozen taxicabs followed the flower-laden hearse.
“She doesn’t seem to have had any personal friends,” remarked Bowden, one of the reporters who had shared Austin’s taxi. “I should have thought some of the big pots—or of Sir Robert’s relatives—would have had the decency to come on. There’s Twining, the lawyer—who’s the old man beside him?”
“Sir Robert’s valet—sort of confidential attendant. His name’s Thomson,” said Austin.
Thomson, decorous and unperturbed as usual, appeared in fact to be acting as a sort of major-domo, and was giving low-voiced instructions to the undertaker’s men as they deftly removed the masses of flowers that covered the coffin. One of them handed him a large heart fashioned of purple blossoms, which he carried carefully in both hands, as he moved to a position close to the open grave, and to the priests in their imposing vestments.
“Who are the others?” whispered Starr’s companion. “Servants too? They look like foreigners. Didn’t see ’em at the church.”
He indicated two groups that had assembled each side the grave, from which the reporters stood a little apart.
“Don’t know,” Austin returned curtly, with a gesture imposing silence.
That was not entirely true; for with the group on the right, some eight or nine poorly clad men and women, with white, earnest, grief-stricken faces, was Boris Melikoff, holding in his right hand a single branch of beautiful crimson lilies.
“Russian refugees, and they are the real mourners,” Austin said to himself, and scanned each face in turn searchingly. Did any one of them know the grim secret he was determined to discover? Could any one of them, man or woman, be the actual murderer? It seemed unlikely—even impossible—as he noted their sorrow, restrained, indeed, with touching dignity, and therefore apparently the more deep and sincere.
He turned his gaze on the other group—three persons only, a man and two women. The man was Cacciola, a stately, impressive figure, his fine head bared, his long, grey locks stirred by the chill, damp breeze. His dark eyes were fixed anxiously on his beloved Boris, but he showed no other sign of emotion.
The short woman who clung weeping to his arm, her face concealed by an enormous black-bordered handkerchief, was undoubtedly his housekeeper, old Giulia.
And the third? Austin caught his breath quickly as he looked at her, just managing to check the involuntary exclamation that rose to his lips.
She was one of the most beautiful creatures he had ever seen, quite young, probably not more than seventeen, Italian certainly; no other country could produce that vivid, passionate type, that exquisite contour of cheek and throat, that delicate olive skin, birthright of daughters of the sun, those wonderful, tawny eyes shadowed by the long, black lashes.
She was dressed in deep mourning, with a voluminous black veil flung back from her face and falling nearly to the hem of her skirt, but that sombre garb was the only sign of grief about her; it seemed to enhance rather than dim her radiant youth.
There was something triumphant, almost insolent, about her, on such a scene. She stood erect, her graceful head thrown back a little, her full, curved lips slightly parted, her eyes, like those of Cacciola, fixed on Boris Melikoff with an ardent, passionate, self-revealing gaze. She seemed utterly oblivious of every one and everything else, and as he watched her Austin Starr was momentarily oblivious of every one but her.
He was only vaguely aware that the priest’s sonorous voice ceased; but a moment later he was startled by a swift change in the girl’s face. It darkened, as a summer sky sometimes darkens at the advent of a thunder-cloud; her black eyebrows contracted, so did her red lips, the love-light vanished from her eyes; he could have sworn that they flashed red. For a moment the face was transformed to that of a fiend incarnate, obsessed by anger, hatred, jealousy.
Instinctively he looked around to see what had caused this extraordinary emotion, and saw that something had happened by the grave. The Russian group had closed up around Melikoff, towards whom the priests and Mr. Twining had turned as if in shocked remonstrance, while the men who were in the very act of lowering the coffin had paused, and the great purple heart of flowers lay, face downwards, right on the margin of the moss-lined grave.
“What’s up?” he asked the man next him—he whom he had silenced a few minutes before.
“Didn’t you see? The old man laid the heart on the coffin just at the last moment, and that tall, dark, foreign chap stepped forward, chucked it aside, and put those red lilies he had on it. The others pulled him back, and—look—he’s crying or fainting or something. Queer, eh?”
Even as he spoke Thomson, who alone seemed to have retained his composure, lifted the heart and replaced it, but below the lilies, and signed to the men to proceed with their task.
The whole thing passed in a few seconds, the priest proceeded with the last sentences, and pronounced the benediction, and Starr, his brain awhirl with wild conjectures, looked once more at the girl.
She was standing with bowed head and downcast eyes, in an attitude of reverence, her hands clasped on her breast, and he wondered if his eyes had deceived him just now. Then he noticed that one of her black gloves was split right across—plain to see even at that distance, for her white hand gleamed through the rent—and knew he had not been mistaken. She had clenched her hands in that spasm of fury. The glove was evidence!
She loved Boris Melikoff; she hated that dead woman with a hatred that even the grave could not mitigate.
Was this the clue he sought? Who was she? What was her connection with Cacciola—with Melikoff? He must learn that without delay.
Cacciola was already hastening towards Boris and his friends, while the girl remained with Giulia, and Austin would have followed, but was intercepted by Mr. Twining, the lawyer, who had held a brief colloquy with Thomson, and now hurried up to the little group of journalists.
“Mr. Starr? I believe you and these gentlemen are representatives of the Press? I represent Sir Robert Rawson on this solemn occasion, and, speaking in his name, I beg of you not to give any publicity to the painful little incident you have just witnessed—I mean the incident with the flowers. It cannot be of any public interest whatever, and its publication would add to the distress of Sir Robert and—er—possibly of others. Can I rely upon you not to mention it?”
The undertaking was given, of course, and the journalists hurried off, with the exception of Austin, detained this time by Thomson.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but I should like a few minutes’ conversation, and as I know you are pressed for time, would you accept the use of the car, one of Sir Robert’s that I am to return in, and permit me to accompany you? We can drive straight to your destination.”
Austin accepted with alacrity, and they entered a closed car, which had come laden with flowers, whose heavy, sickly fragrance still clung about it.
“I am sure you will excuse the liberty, sir,” said Thomson, in his precise, respectful way. “I would have liked to have a word with you yesterday when you called on Sir Robert, but it was impossible.”
Austin nodded, wondering what was coming. Somewhat to his surprise, Thomson had been present at the interview yesterday, at Sir Robert’s own request, standing silently behind his master’s chair.
“It’s about Mr. Carling, sir. I can’t think why the police should have arrested him of all people in the world—such a nice young gentleman as he is. He had no more to do with my lady’s death than you had!”
“Of course he hadn’t. But, see here, Thomson, do you know anything of his movements that morning?”
“Nothing at all, sir, beyond what every one else knows, or will know soon. But how anybody acquainted with him can believe it for a minute beats me—my master most of all. I have presumed to speak to him about it—I’ve been with Sir Robert many years, sir—but he wouldn’t hear a word, even from me. He says Mr. Carling followed and murdered my lady so as to get those papers back; he told the police so!”
“I don’t believe the papers had anything to do with it.”
Thomson, who was sitting forward on the edge of the seat, his black-gloved hands resting on his knees, turned his head slowly and looked at Austin sideways, for the first time during the colloquy.
“Nor I, sir. I hold that it was a thief, who got rid of the papers as soon as possible.”
“It might have been a vendetta!”
“I beg your pardon, sir, a what?”
“Someone who had a grudge against Lady Rawson and watched for the chance of killing her?”
“That hadn’t struck me, sir,” said Thomson after a reflective pause.
“It struck me. Do you know anything about Mr. Melikoff and his associates?”
“The young gentleman who was so upset just now? Only that he was related to my lady and they used to meet, as Sir Robert was aware,” Thomson replied, and Austin had the impression that he was lying, though why he could not imagine. “I fear there’s no light in that direction, sir. And Mr. Melikoff was not even in London at the time.”
“I wasn’t thinking of him, but whether there might be someone, who knew them both,” said Austin, with that girl’s beautiful, passionate face still vividly in remembrance. But he could not question the old man about her. Some instinct, which at the moment he did not attempt to analyse, forbade him.
“What did you want to tell me?” he asked bluntly, as the swift car was nearing Fleet Street and Thomson had relapsed into silence.
“I beg your pardon, sir. I was forgetting. I took the liberty, knowing that you are a friend of Mr. Carling’s, merely to ask if you could possibly convey my respects to him, and to the poor young lady his wife, and my best wishes that they will soon be restored to each other.”
“I’ll do it with pleasure. Thank you, Thomson. Good day.”
“Queer old coon,” he thought, as he dashed up to his room. “So that was all he wanted. Very decent of him though.”
Then he concentrated on his work. He was just through when Winnie rang him up, to say that Grace and her father had returned to the flat and were anxious to see him that evening, if possible.
“I’ll come round about nine, dear—perhaps earlier; but I’ve to see someone first.”
After a minute’s cogitation he rang up Cacciola. A woman’s voice answered—a delightful voice, rich and soft—in fluent English, with a mere intonation (it was slighter than an accent) that betrayed the speaker’s nationality.
“Signor Cacciola is away from home. Will you give a message?”
A dull flush rose to Austin’s face, a queer thrill passed through him.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Who is speaking? Is it Signora Giulia?”
“No. She also is not present. I am Maddelena Cacciola. What is the message?”
“I’d rather tell it to the maestro himself. When will he be home?”
“Not till—oh, very late.”
“Then is Mr. Melikoff home?”
“No. He also is out with my uncle.”
“I see. I’m sorry to have troubled you, signorina. I’ll ring up again to-morrow.”
“Will you not tell me your name?”
“Austin Starr. But he may not remember it.”
“I will tell him, Mr. Starr. Good-bye.”
He replaced the receiver, and again sat in thought, drumming softly with his fingers on the table.
So she was Cacciola’s niece, and was living, or at least staying, with him, under the same roof as Boris Melikoff.
What a voice! Worthy of her face, her eyes. And a beautiful name too; he found himself repeating it in a whisper: “Maddelena!”