Night had fallen before the great wooden clappers, used to arouse the monks to go to prayers at two o’clock in the morning, resounded through the cloister as a reminder that I, a stranger, must take my departure.
Fra Antonio rose, lit a great old brass lantern, and conducted me along those silent corridors, out across the small piazza and down the hillside to the main road which lay straight and white in the darkness.
Then, having directed me on the road, he grasped my hand in his big palm, rough through hard toil at his patch of garden, and said—
“Rely upon me to do my best. I knew poor Blair—yes, knew him better than you did, Signor Greenwood. I knew, too, something of his remarkable secret, and therefore I am aware how strange and how mysterious are all the circumstances. I shall work on here, making inquiries, while you return to London and pursue yours. I would, however, make the suggestion to you that if you meet Dick Dawson strike up a friendship with him, and with Dolly. They are a strange pair, but friendship with them may be profitable.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “Friendship with the man whom you declare was one of Blair’s bitterest enemies?”
“And why not? Is it not diplomacy to be well received in the enemy’s camp? Recollect that your own stake in this affair is the greatest of any one’s. The secret is bequeathed to you—the secret of Burton Blair’s millions!”
“And I intend to recover it,” I declared firmly.
“I only hope you will, signore,” he said in a voice which to me sounded full of a double meaning. “I only hope you will.”
Then wishing me “Addio, e buona fortuna,” Fra Antonio, the Capuchin and man of secrets, turned and left me standing in the dark highway.
Hardly had I advanced fifty yards before a short dark figure loomed out from the shadow of some bushes, and by the voice that hailed me I knew it to be old Babbo, whom I had believed had grown tired of awaiting me. He had, however, evidently followed us from the church, and seeing us enter the monastery had patiently awaited my return.