There was, however, a second telegram which stated that two carabineers patrolling the road near the villa had stopped and questioned a mysterious Englishman who was now suspected to be one of the assassins, and after whom the police were in active search.
Miller and his companions were actually scot-free—and with their enormous booty!
No word was published regarding the mysterious discovery previously made in that house. The police were still hushing up the affair that was so shrouded in mystery, yet at the same time they evidently connected the two curious circumstances, and regarded them as a problem altogether beyond solution. Little, however, did they dream that the missing man’s secret hoard had been carried off in its entirety!
Next morning, when the waiter brought my coffee, a telegram lay upon the tray. It was from Lucie, despatched the previous day from the Swiss frontier at Chiasso, announcing that she and her father were on their way to Paris and would arrive that night at the Hôtel de Grand, which proved to be a modest little place in the Rue de la Michodière, near the Boulevard des Italiens.
Miller was escaping with those thick packets of thousand-franc notes which I had seen him secure, though Lucie was, of course, in entire ignorance of what had occurred.
Next morning I anxiously sought her. She came to me in the little salon of the unpretending hotel, a neat figure in her blue serge travelling-dress and smart little toque. Greeting me enthusiastically, she exclaimed:—
“How suddenly you went from Leghorn! I sent down to the Palace Hotel, for I wanted to see you again, but you had gone. I wanted to tell you that I’ve heard from Ella. The tenant of Wichenford has been recalled suddenly to America, and she and Mr Murray are back there for a little while. I thought you would like to know this.”
“Know it? Of course I do. I shall leave Paris to-night,” I said, glad to have news of my well-beloved.
“We also leave to-night. We are on our way back to Studland. Father wired me to meet him in Milan, and I did so. Then he explained that we were going home again, and that we should not return to Italy till the spring.”
He would probably never return to Italy, I thought, though I said nothing, except to congratulate her upon the prospect of spending a few months in Dorsetshire at the old home she loved so well.