Hora had not found existence present many difficulties. He had buried his scruples with his identity, and a man of brains, with courage and no scruples, need never look very far for the means of subsistence. For a while he preyed on British tourists. They were of his own race, and, therefore, his chiefest enemies, and, besides, he knew that, since he would need a place where he might build a reputation and a new identity if his purposes were to be fulfilled, it would be unwise to prey upon the inhabitants of the selected spot. Italy appealed to him. He became to all intents and purposes Italian. An English soap-maker's wife, "seeing" the Eternal City, supplied him, unwittingly, with funds to purchase a vineyard in Tuscany. He stocked his farm and furnished a house with the contents of a duchess' jewel casket. The capital necessary for pursuing his agricultural operations was provided indirectly by the Casino authorities at Monte Carlo. Hora had ventured no stake at the tables. He had merely relieved a successful gambler of his winnings. Thus provided with a home, he had paid a visit to England. When he returned, six months later, he brought his reputed son with him, a child of three; and away in England, his old comrade, now Captain Marven, together with Mrs. Marven, had mourned beside an empty cot in their nursery.
Hora had succeeded in the initial step towards the accomplishment of his revenge. But this had been only the first step. His appetite was not to be sated with one simple meal of vengeance. His rival, like himself, should never be allowed to forget his loss. So punctually every year, on the anniversary of the stolen boy's birthday, Marven had received a brief type-written note stating that the child was alive and well—nothing more. Hora would gladly have signed the note with his forgotten name, but that thereby he might have incurred danger to himself and the overthrow of his whole scheme of revenge. When the appointed time came, when the child was full grown, when by his own acts the child should be damned beyond all redemption—then the woman who had refused his offer of marriage should have her son restored to her, the rival who had won that woman's love from him should have the paternity of the criminal thrust upon him, and the whole world should be made aware of Guy's real parentage. That was the complete scheme of revenge Hora contemplated; to consummate which he had instilled into the baby ears the subtle poison of his perverted morality, had skilfully taken advantage of the boy's adventurous nature to interest him in the romantic possibilities of a criminal career, had laboured and watched the unfolding of a mind with the patience of a Japanese gardener producing a dwarfed and twisted miniature of a fair tree of the forest.
He had been discreet in his work. He had no intention of making of his pupil a rod for his own scourging. His conception of the great criminal he desired to make of Guy had nothing in common with the average conception of a person given to indulgence in all the commonplace vices of humanity. Self-control he had early realised was of more importance to the man who was waging single-handed warfare with the world, than to the units of the community with whom he was at issue. His own predilections, too, were instinctively refined. The grosser forms of self-indulgence had never appealed to him. He was an epicure of life, and had no desire to spoil his palate with a surfeit of coarse pleasures. Clean living himself, he demanded cleanliness of life in those about him. To what happened outside of his own household he was cynically indifferent.
Guy had proved a credit to his training. He was healthy in body, full of the enthusiasm of living, and possessed of a fine rapture for the profession to which he had served his apprenticeship. Almost the time was ripe for the consummation of Hora's revenge, when chance had brought Guy into contact with his real parents. This was a contingency Hora had not foreseen, and it needed careful consideration. He did not fear that the relationship would be disclosed. Guy himself had no suspicion of the facts. He knew no parent but Hora, though he believed that he remembered the mother whom Hora had invented for his benefit, whose portrait hung on the wall of his bedroom, and of whom Hora had spoken to him on many occasions. Yes, Guy Marven's real identity was sufficiently sunken in that of Guy Hora to ensure him against discovery, even though physical likeness should lead to comment.
Yet, Hora's first emotion, on learning that his foster-son had met his father and mother, was one he thought he had banished forever. A sensation of fear had passed over him, a dread lest the natural inclination of son to mother should manifest itself, lest the blood which pulsed eagerly in the son's arteries should cry out to the blood which ran more sluggishly in his father's veins, and, his own mock relationship disestablished, there be destroyed the living instrument for his revenge he had spent so many years in fashioning. Nor had his only fear been for the loss of his whole scheme of revenge. He realised, for the first time, that his interest in Guy was more than that of the artist in his artistry. Guy had always looked to him, had repaid him for his attention with all the warmth of an affectionate nature. He was the one being in whom, save Myra, Hora had taken a personal interest. Suppose someone else were to take his, Hora's, place in the young man's thoughts? The dread was in his mind, though he would not acknowledge it—though he denied its existence. That would be a piece of sentimentalism utterly foreign to his whole nature. He told himself that he had no affection for the child of his adoption, save that of the master craftsman in his tool. Of course he would regret the necessity, when it arose, of giving the tool to destruction, but he would admit to himself no warmer interest in Guy's fate than that.
Self-persuaded on the point, he considered whether the meeting, of which he had been apprised, might not be utilised for the furtherance of his plans. Nor was it long before he became persuaded that Fate was playing into his hands. Supposing that the acquaintance developed into intimacy. A thousand vague possibilities floated, shadow-like, before Hora's eyes. He determined that the acquaintance should be continued, but still fearful, he determined also that Guy should be plunged more deeply into the vortex of crime than hitherto, so that, struggle and strive as he might, he should find it impossible to escape. Fortunately for his purpose, Guy had expressed himself as hungering for further adventure. Well, Hora was fertile of plans, and he saw very good reasons why Guy's desires should be humoured. His household saw nothing more of the Commandatore that day. He remained alone with his thoughts.
CHAPTER V
THE COMMANDATORE MAKES A DEDUCTION
"We are getting near the end of our resources, Guy," remarked Hora quietly, as he held a glass of port up to the light, sipped the wine, nodded his head approvingly, and set the glass down gently.
It was the evening of the second day after Hora's exhibition of emotion upon hearing the name of Marven. He had not referred again to the object of his hatred, and neither Myra nor Guy, who sat with him at the table, had prompted his memory.
Guy looked round the room before he answered. He had been well trained in the observance of caution. But the servants had retired, the door was closed. The three were alone.