MADDELENA
“Giulia, thou art a foolish old cow! I tell thee no harm will come to thee. It is but to make oath and tell the truth; that the young signor came here inquiring for Donna Paula, and went away, and that Withers brought thee later the little silver case, and thou gave it to the police. What is there in all that?”
In the beautifully appointed kitchen where usually Giulia reigned supreme Maddelena, attired in a morning wrapper of brilliant hues, was dividing her attention between preparing the breakfast coffee and alternately coaxing and scolding Giulia, who sat huddled in a chair, weeping and muttering prayers and protestations to every saint in the calendar.
She was to give evidence in the police court again that day—as she had already done at the inquest which had terminated in a verdict of wilful murder against Roger Carling—and nothing would induce the poor old woman to believe that the object of these interrogations was any other than to prove her guilty of stealing that silver cigarette case! That, she was convinced, was what “they of the police” were after, and the murder of “Donna Paula” was quite a secondary consideration.
Maddelena shrugged her pretty shoulders and went on with her task, setting a dainty breakfast-tray with a little silver service. For all her sharp words to Giulia, there was a smile on her lips, and her fine, capable white hands touched the inanimate things caressingly; for she was preparing that tray for Boris, who had not been out the other evening—as she told Austin Starr on the telephone—but ill in bed. He had collapsed after that scene at the cemetery, and they had brought him home more dead than alive. As Giulia was so foolishly upset, Maddelena and her uncle had nursed the invalid, and already he was much better.
She turned brightly to Cacciola as he came into the kitchen.
“On the instant, for behold all is ready. Tell him he is to eat every morsel, on pain of my royal displeasure! How is he?”
“Very weak still, though he says he slept well,” said Cacciola, taking up the tray. “And he insists on coming with us to-day.”
Maddelena’s expressive face darkened.
“To the court? But what folly; there is no need, and he will make himself ill again,” she cried.
“I think not. Let him have his way, carissima, and he will get over it the sooner,” said Cacciola pacifically, and retreated with the tray down the long passage that led to Melikoff’s room.
The flat was a large one—two thrown into one in fact—for the maestro liked plenty of room. That was why he had settled in a suburb.
Maddelena stood frowning for a minute or more, then shrugged her shoulders again, administered a petulant shake to the sobbing Giulia, poured out a big cup of coffee, and handed it to the old woman, sternly bidding her drink it and cease her fuss, and finally sat down to her own breakfast, breaking her roll and dabbing on butter with angry, jerky movements, and scolding Giulia between mouthfuls.
But she showed no sign of ill-humour an hour later when she greeted Boris. Her manner now was of charming, protective, almost maternal, solicitude.
She looked very beautiful too, not in the mourning garb she had worn at the funeral, but in a handsome furred coat of tawny cloth, almost the colour of her eyes, and a bewitching little hat to match.
Even Boris, worn, haggard, brooding resentfully on his tragic sorrow, summoned up a smile for her, as Cacciola, watching the pair of them, noticed with secret satisfaction.
“I ought to scold you Boris, my friend,” she said. “You are not fit to go out at all, and it will be such a trial for you. But, altro, you must have your way as usual! Give him your arm, uncle. Come, Giulia.”
Outside the court they parted from the reluctant and trembling Giulia, leaving her in charge of the kindly postmistress, Mrs. Cave, who was also to give evidence, and promised to take charge of her in the witnesses’ room.
A big crowd had assembled waiting for the public doors to open, but Cacciola and his companions were admitted through the official entrance, and given seats in the front row, just above and behind the solicitors’ table.
A few minutes later such spectators as could be accommodated swarmed in, pushing for places; and presently the body of the little court began to fill up, as solicitors, clerks, and reporters drifted in and took their places.
Boris Melikoff, on one side of Cacciola, sat with his hands in his pockets, his chin sunk on his breast, giving no heed to anyone at present; but Maddelena, on the other side, watched with lively though decorous interest, whispering many questions and comments to her uncle.
“That is Mr. Starr, a journalist,” said Cacciola as Austin appeared and betook himself to the Press table.
“He who spoke with me on the telephone? He is very good-looking. I think I like him! Ah, he sees us!”
For Austin, surveying the eager, curious faces of the crowd, again mainly composed of smart women, saw the group in front, and exchanged a nod of greeting with Cacciola. Then his eyes met Maddelena’s frank, inquiring gaze. For several seconds—that seemed longer to Austin—they looked full at each other, till she drooped her long, black lashes demurely, her lips relaxing in a faint smile. The startled admiration she thought she discerned in his glance amused and did not surprise her. She was used to creating such an impression, for, though not in the least vain, she was fully conscious of her beauty. She did not imagine that he had ever seen her before, and that his interest in her was deeper and more complex than that which an exceptionally pretty girl inspires in most men, young or old.
When she stole another glance at him he was no longer looking in her direction, but was listening with frigid courtesy to a fair-haired woman in a seal coat and expensive hat, who had just come in with a tall, thin, grey-haired man, and was looking up coquettishly into Austin’s glum face, as she spoke in a rapid undertone.
“Who is that?” demanded Maddelena.
“Mrs. Armitage and her husband—Mrs. Carling’s mother and father,” said Cacciola.
Mrs. Armitage it was, who, having realized that as a close connection of the two central figures in this poignant drama of life, she was a person of importance in the eyes of the public, had decided that it was her duty to attend the court; and already, with much complacence, had permitted herself to be “snapped” by several Press photographers lying in wait outside, and had assumed a most pathetic expression in the hope that it would “come out well.”
Maddelena noted every detail of her attire and manner, and with keen feminine intuition summed her up accurately on the instant. “So. If the daughter is like the mother then I, for one, will spare no sympathy for her,” she decided.
Cacciola touched her arm.
“Behold, here is Mrs. Carling. The poor girl, my heart bleeds for her. Miss Winston is with her. That is good.”
There was a buzz and flutter, as necks were craned in the endeavour to see Grace Carling’s face, but she kept her heavy veil down, and appeared absolutely unconscious of the presence of those inquisitive onlookers, as she gravely accepted her mother’s effusive greeting, and then seated herself with her back to the crowd, where she would have an uninterrupted view of her husband when he should be brought into the dock.
Winnie Winston became the centre of attention for the moment, as, seeing Cacciola, she made her way across to speak to him, and unashamedly every one in the vicinity tried to overhear. Only Melikoff maintained his sullen, brooding attitude. He had come there to-day to see but one person, Roger Carling, the enemy whom he hated.
“How is Mrs. Carling?” asked Cacciola.
“Very well, and wonderfully brave,” said Winnie. “They both are, as they should be, for he is innocent, maestro. But it is terrible for us all. Is this your niece? I have heard of her, but we haven’t met before.”
He introduced the girls, and Maddelena leant down over the barrier and spoke with charming courtesy.
“My uncle talks so much of you, Miss Winston. You are—oh, one of his great favourites. I wish we had met more happily. I have just returned from Milan, into all this sorrow. It is too sad!”
“Ought Mr. Melikoff to be here? He looks very ill,” said Winnie, with a glance at Boris; and Maddelena looked at him, too, her eyes softening, as they always did when they regarded him.
“Alas! he would come, though I and my uncle sought to dissuade him; but he is very obstinate, our poor Boris, and distracted with grief. But he will—he must—recover in time.”
Winnie nodded sympathetically and retreated, much to the relief of Austin Starr, who from the distance had watched the incident uneasily, though why he should be disturbed he could not have said. But thenceforth, for the greater part of that grim day, he concentrated his attention chiefly on those three, feeling more and more convinced that they presented a psychological problem which, if it could be solved, would elucidate the mystery of Paula Rawson’s murder. When Roger Carling was brought into the dock Starr saw Boris Melikoff sit up, as if galvanized into life, his white face set like a fine, stern mask, his dark eyes, feverishly brilliant, fixed relentlessly on the prisoner’s face.
So far as Austin’s observation went, Roger was quite unaware of that fierce, fanatical stare, and of all the other eyes focused upon him. With head erect he listened with grave attention as the case against him was stated by the prosecution, and later supported in nearly every detail by the many witnesses. Usually he watched each speaker in turn, and in the intervals his eyes always sought those of Grace, in silent and spiritual communion that gave strength and courage to them both. At those moments husband and wife were as unconscious of the crowded court, of the whispered glances of the spectators, as if they had been transported to another world which held none but themselves.
Maddelena could not see Grace Carling’s face, but she watched Roger as intently as Austin Starr watched her.
As he watched, Austin’s perplexity increased. At first her expressive face revealed a most curious emotion, in which there was no trace of the hatred and resentment betrayed so plainly by Boris Melikoff, or of the fury that had distorted it by Paula Rawson’s grave. On the contrary, she looked at Roger admiringly, exultantly, as women look at a hero who has done some great deed. Austin felt that he really would not have been surprised if she had clapped and cheered!
Now, why on earth should she look at Roger Carling like that?
But presently her face changed and softened, became gravely thoughtful. She sat very still, leaning forward, her elbows on the rail in front of her, her chin resting on her clasped hands, her dark brows contracted, and Austin thought he read in her wonderful eloquent eyes doubt, dismay, increasing anxiety, and a great compassion.
What was in her mind? What did she know—or conjecture?
That was what he must endeavour to discover.
Dispassionately, inexorably, the case was stated by the prosecution, based, as nearly every murder charge must be, on circumstantial evidence.
There were the undisputed facts that the prisoner had followed and endeavoured to see Lady Rawson, with the intention of recovering the stolen papers which he believed to have been—and were now known to have been—in her possession; that he had been close at hand at the moment the murder must have been committed, though none of the people who were in and out of the shop at the time, and who had all been traced and summoned as witnesses, could swear to having seen him. There was the agreement of time and place; even allowing for the delay caused by the fog, there was ample time for him to reach the church, “late and agitated” as he undoubtedly was, after committing the crime.
Above all, there, on the table, was the possible—nay, almost certainly the actual—weapon employed; one of the two pocket knives found on the prisoner at the time of his arrest. It was a flat, tortoiseshell penknife, of which the larger blade, of finely tempered steel, keen as a razor, constituted, in the opinion of the surgical experts, precisely the sort of instrument with which the wound was inflicted. The other knife—a thick blunt blade—was out of the question, part of a “motorists’s compendium,” fitted with several other small tools, none of which could inflict just such a wound.
Sadler, the taxi-driver, who had a bandage round his head and still looked shaky as a result of his smash up, identified the prisoner as the gentleman he had driven from Grosvenor Gardens to Rivercourt Mansions, having already picked him out unhesitatingly from among a number of other men.
Sadler’s further story was perfectly straightforward.
Having deposited his fare, and finding himself so close to the house of his sweetheart, Jessie Jackson, he drove slowly across to the post office, saw, through the window, Jessie in the shop with her aunt, guessed that in a few minutes she would be going up to dinner, and they would have the chance of a few words together, so pulled up in a side street, just by the house door, and out of sight from the shop, and smoked a “gasper” while he waited.
Presently he got down, had another squint into the shop, saw Mrs. Cave was now alone, so sounded his horn, “in a sort of signal we have,” and Jessie immediately came down and let him in at the side door. How long he was up in the kitchen with her he couldn’t say—not exactly—till her aunt called her down.
Then he waited for another few minutes, till he thought he heard someone “cranking up” his cab; ran downstairs, and sure enough the cab was disappearing down the street.
He went after it, and round the corner, just by the waterworks, found it standing, the engine still going, and saw a “nipper” running away.
He jumped to his seat, followed the boy, and, turning the corner, crashed right into a lorry, and that was all he knew till he came to himself in hospital.
Story corroborated by Jessie Jackson, Jim Trent—a bright faced mischievous schoolboy, who had himself owned up to the police that, seeing the cab unattended, he couldn’t resist the temptation of trying to start and drive it, but soon pulled up and “hooked it,” exactly as Sadler had said—and several people who had seen the chauffeur in wrathful pursuit of the cab.
At this stage the court rose for lunch, and Austin Starr went across for a word with Cacciola.
Already Maddelena had changed places with her uncle, and was speaking softly to Boris, who, the moment Roger Carling disappeared from sight, had sunk down in his former attitude, looking utterly exhausted.
Starr could not hear what she said, but she seemed to be remonstrating with him, tenderly and anxiously, while from her big brocaded bag she produced a thermos flask, poured out a cup of fragrant Russian tea—it smelt as if it was laced with brandy as well as lemon!—and coaxed him to drink, just as a mother might coax a sick and fretful child.
She was far too absorbed to spare a glance or a thought for anyone else at the moment, and Austin took himself off, having no time to waste, and having achieved his immediate purpose—an appointment With Cacciola at Rivercourt Mansions that evening. He was most anxious to begin a near study of that “psychological problem” of which Maddelena Cacciola was the most perplexing—yes, and the most attractive element!