The arrested men had confessed to being associated with an attempted act of violence, but swore that the intended victim had escaped in the boat, and that one of their number, who was the only guilty party, had fled. This, however, was a palpable lie, for the boat was later found beached at the mouth of the estuary a short distance away, and if it had been used at all, which was not at all certain, it must have been utilized as a means of escape by that one of their number who had bolted.
Meanwhile, the police had ascertained that Mr. Tundering-West had been staying at Genoa three days previously; and that an Englishman, whose name did not appear in the hotel register, but was probably identical, had stopped at the little Hotel Giovanni in Pisa on the nights previous to the crime. During the day a police-launch had scoured the sea in the neighbourhood, but the body had not been found.
Jim was dazed as he read the amazing words, and for some time thereafter he sat staring in front of him, lost in a maze of speculation. Two thoughts, however, stood out clearly in the confusion of his mind. In the first place he must not allow the innkeeper to suffer the extreme penalty for a crime which fortunately had not been committed; and in the second place he would have to notify Dolly that he was safe.
Presently, therefore, he made his way towards a telegraph office, and then, changing his mind, enquired his way to the police-station. He was feverishly anxious to preserve the secret of his identity with Jim Easton, for that name seemed to represent his freedom, and he was filled with disappointment that all his schemes for his periodical liberty should thus fall to pieces; yet he could not devise a means of preserving his secret, and he hovered, irresolute, between the Scylla of the telegram and the Charybdis of this devastating notification to the police.
He was standing at a street corner, near the telegraph office, racking his brains, when a newspaper boy passed him, selling an evening paper; and he bought a copy in order to read the latest news in regard to his own murder. Great developments, he found, had taken place during the day. Acting upon an anonymous communication, the police had dug up the flagstones of one of the basement rooms of the inn, and there they had found the decomposing body of a certain Italian gentleman who had disappeared some months previously; and, following upon this, the innkeeper had made a dramatic confession. It was true, he declared, that both murders were the work of his hands. In the case of the Italian, the victim had insulted a woman of his acquaintance and a duel had followed; and in the case of the Englishman, the motive had been revenge for an insult to his beloved Italy. He had offered to fight this foreigner like a gentleman, but the stranger had taken a mean advantage of him and had struck him with a candlestick. Thereupon he had stabbed him deeply, as the blood indicated, but not fatally, for there had followed a pretty fight; and at last he had lifted his opponent from the ground and had hurled him straight through the window. Then, contemptuously handing his knife to that one of his friends who had cravenly fled, he had told him to finish the work, and to throw the body to the fishes.
At this Jim’s heart leapt within him, and he laughed aloud. It was now totally unnecessary for him to save the braggart’s neck by revealing the fact that he was alive and unhurt. Indeed, he smiled, he had not the heart to spoil the man’s boastful story. The innkeeper was a proven murderer or manslaughterer, and there was no need to speak up in his defence. The finding of the first victim’s body, and the consequent confession, had completely ended the matter; and now the law could take its course. And upon the heels of this conclusion there came rushing forward another thought—a thought which had been lurking in the back of his mind ever since he had read the first news of the crime.
“James Tundering-West is dead,” he muttered; “the Squire of Eversfield is dead! But Jim Easton, the vagrant, is alive!”
He struck his breast with his fist, and set off walking aimlessly along the street, away from the telegraph office. Of a sudden, it seemed to him, an incubus had been removed. That fat, leering figure in its tight black coat, which, in his imagination, had come to represent domestic life and village society, had collapsed like a pricked balloon. It had leered at him for the last time, and, with a whistle of escaping air, had shrunk into a little heap, over which he was even now leaping to freedom.
“Jim Easton, the free man, is alive,” sang his heart, “but Dolly’s husband is at the bottom of the sea!”