“I am not Signor Salvi here,” was the monk’s quiet reply. “I am known as Fra Antonio of Arezzo, or Fra Antonio for short. The name of Salvi was given to me by poor Blair himself, who did not wish to introduce a Capuchin among his worldly friends as such. As to the source of his wealth, I believe I am acquainted with the truth.”
“Then tell me, tell me!” I cried anxiously.
“For it may give us the clue to these persons who had so successfully conspired against him.” Again the monk turned his dark, penetrating eyes upon me, those eyes that in the gloom of San Frediano had seemed so full of fire and yet so full of mystery.
“No,” he answered in a hard, decisive tone. “I am not permitted to tell anything. He is dead—let his memory rest.”
“But why?” I demanded. “In these circumstances of grave suspicion, and of the theft of the secret which is my property by right, it is surely your duty to explain what you know, in order that we may gain a clue? Recollect, too, that the future of his daughter depends upon the truth being revealed.”
“I can tell you nothing,” he repeated. “Much as I regret it, my lips are sealed.”
“Why?”
“By an oath taken years ago—before I entered the Order of the Capuchins,” he responded. Then after a pause, he added, with a sigh, “It is all strange—stranger perhaps than any man has dreamed—yet I can tell you nothing, Mr Greenwood, absolutely nothing.”
I was silent. His words were highly tantalising, as well as disappointing. I had not yet made up my mind whether he was actually my enemy or my friend.
At one moment he seemed simple, honest and straightforward as are all men of his religious order, yet at others there seemed within him that craft and cunning, that clever diplomacy and far-seeing acumen of the Jesuit, traits of a character warped into ingenuity and double-dealing.