“Most certainly. Like his unscrupulous companion Graniani, he would stand at nothing. A dozen times he could have killed me if he had so wished. He and his accomplice had, I feel convinced, recovered, from some old manuscript—in the Certosa, I believe—the secret of the Borgia cantarella. One afternoon he came to me here and told me in confidence of a most important palaeographical discovery made by his friend, Fra Francesco, who, he added, was no longer a monk at the Certosa, that monastery having been dissolved by the Italian Government—which was, I knew, the truth.
“The manuscript was nothing less than the noted Arnoldus of the Certosa, which had fallen into the hands of the Prior of San Sisto at Florence, and had been purchased by an English collector—yourself. Graniani had missed securing it, believing that it was not the treasured volume of the monastery, but a smaller and less valuable copy that he knew had been in the library. After it had been purchased by you, however, he discovered, to his chagrin, that it was the great Arnoldus itself, the book that contained some strange things in English written by an English monk named Lovel, who had ended his days at that famous monastery. Many strange and remarkable secrets were, he said, in that record—secrets regarding Lucrezia Borgia, her life, and the whereabouts of her jewels, all of which Fra Francesco had read years ago when, as a lay brother, he had had access to the manuscript. He was now about to obtain possession of it, and send it to England, so that the statements it contained might be investigated and verified.”
“They stole it from my house at Antignano,” I said quickly. “An Italian woman named Anita Bardi was the thief!”
“I know. Old Mrs Pickard went to Paris, met her there, and carried it to Harpur Street. That night he examined it alone, reading through the record; and afterwards becoming seized by extraordinary pains, he was compelled to send for a doctor. He showed me the manuscript at Walsingham House next day; but we examined it with gloves, for he declared that the vellum leaves had been envenomed. Afterwards, it mysteriously disappeared from Harpur Street.”
“It passed again into my possession,” I admitted, explaining how I had invoked the aid of my police friend Noyes.
“Selby had not finished copying the whole of it, hence our miscalculation of the spot at Threave,” his lordship explained. “Of course, when Graniani returned to London and their scheme to obtain the treasure was placed before me, both myself and Judith announced our readiness to assist; first, in order to obtain the secret of that mysterious house in Bloomsbury; and, secondly, to obtain sufficient evidence to convict the men of their dastardly crimes. As participators in the conspiracy we were at length admitted there, and found it a gloomy, dismal place. The sign of the bear cub still puzzled us, and the reason of Selby’s secret visits there were equally inexplicable. Judith did all she could to unravel the mystery, acting with utter fearlessness, although well knowing that at any time, if the faintest suspicion were aroused, she would fall the victim of secret assassination just as her dear mother had done.”
“It was to avenge her that I have acted as I have done through it all,” declared her ladyship. “I was determined to learn the truth about that pair of fiends and to unravel the mystery of that house with its secret sign. You sought of me an explanation of my conduct. Yet how could I give it without telling you the strange, tragic, and remarkable story which my father has just related? I promised you that you should know some day—and you have now heard the truth.”
“I understand,” I replied. “But not everything.”
“Ah, no! you do not know everything,” she sighed, stretching forth her hand towards me. “When you do, you cannot forgive.”
“Forgive! What?” I cried. But her father hastened to calm her emotion.