CHAPTER I.

“Signor Ricardo, Prof. of the Italian Language!” That was the legend that was engraved on the small brass plate that surmounted the bell that admitted visitors to Mrs. Battleby’s lodging-house in Soho. Signor Ricardo was everything that was estimable in Mrs. Battleby’s eyes, only he was, as she observed to her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Blamey, “a Mystery”. He was a tall, attenuated man, who stooped slightly in the shoulders--had dark-grey eyes, keen as those of a hawk, and shaded by bushy eyebrows--a perfect aquiline nose--and a grave, almost solemn mouth, which seldom smiled, and ended in a pointed beard, like that of Vandyke. He was very poor, being an Italian refugee, whose estates had been confiscated for some political error, but he was eminently a gentleman of the _ancienne noblesse_, and preserved the dignity of his birth, even whilst pursuing an occupation which is considered to place a man beyond the pale of Society.

“He’s as good a lodger as ever I had,” said Mrs. Battleby, on the occasion referred to, “as reglar as a clock, both in his ’abits and his payments--every Saturday mornin’ he dislocates my little bill, though I believe he’s sometimes sorely put-to to find the money, and every evenin’ he’s ’ome by eight o’clock and has his bit of supper and puts his light out by ten, but arter that--well! he’s a Mystery!”

“Lor! Mrs. Battleby, ma’am, you don’t go to think he’s murdered anybody, do yer?”

“_Murdered anybody!_” repeated the other, with withering contempt, “why, he’s the aimabeloust gentleman you ever come acrost. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, the Sig-nor” (Mrs. Battleby pronounced the word Signor, with a decided accentuation on the letter _g_), “not to save his own life! And got no temper in him. Never ’eard a ’arsh word, nor a hoath pass his lips. If you’d only seen him onst, you’d never arsk if he was a murderer, Mrs. Blamey!”

“Then ’ow is he a Mystery, which it’s a word I never could abear.”

“Well! it’s this way. When the Sig-nor come to me, now three years ago, he hired three rooms at the top of the ’ouse. I had better rooms I could have let him ’ave, on the floor below, but no! nothing would suit him but my top rooms, hattics as I call ’em, and I had to turn Mary Ann--that gal as went off with the postman--out of her bedroom in order to accommodate him, and he’s lived there ever since. One is his bedroom and the other his parlour, as you may suppose, but would you believe it, Mrs. Blamey, as I’ve never seen the inside of my own third room, ever since the Sig-nor has been with me!”

“My! what do he do with it?”

“’Ow can I tell? I tell you he’s a Mystery! The first day I went up to clean his floor, I found the door locked, and when I arsked for the key, the Sig-nor he says to me, ‘Excuge me,’ he says, for he’s the politest of gentlemen, ‘but I will see after that room myself.’ ‘Lor! Sir,’ I says, ‘but if it’s books or papers, I’ll be as careful as careful,’ I says, ‘but you can’t never struggle with the dust yourself.’ But he was as firm as a rock, and that there door has never been unclosed to my knowledge since.”

“Mrs. Battleby, ma’am, you gives me the cold creeps all down my back! Suppose he should be Jack the Ripper, and congeals the corpusses in your third room. Stranger things ’ave ’appened before now! I think it be’oves you as an ’ouseholder to break open the door!”

At this suggestion, Mrs. Battleby looked for a moment confounded, but in a short time her confidence in the respectability of her lodger, not to say the remembrance of his regularity in paying his rent, restored her equanimity.

“No! Mrs. Blamey, no!” she replied, “wild ’orses shouldn’t make me do it! I’ll never believe no bad of the Sig-nor, though he _is_ a foreigner, and many’s the one as has warned me against him. And he has the respectablelest of friends. Doctor Steinberg is here five days out of the seven, and I’ve heard tell as the Sig-nor teaches Royalty to speak the I-talian langwidge. In course he is a foreigner, there’s no denying that, but it ain’t ’is fault, and I’d be the last to throw it in his teeth! But lor! here’s the Doctor coming along as usual, and he and the Sig-nor will be closeted for hours together.”

The conversation was here interrupted by the arrival of a young man of about thirty, who had fair hair, worn longer than is usual in this country, and whose short-sighted eyes appeared abnormally large through the powerful glasses he was compelled to wear. He was a German of the name of Steinberg, and the profession of medicine--a clever fellow who was rising fast, and knew how to make the best of his opportunities. He was interested in Signor Ricardo for several reasons, and was, as Mrs. Battleby had said, a frequent visitor there.

“Is the Signor in?” he demanded, as he came up with her.

“Yes, Sir! he came in half an hour ago. You might be sure of that! He is so regular that I calls him my clock.”

“And alone?” continued Steinberg.

“Quite alone, Sir!”

“Very good! Don’t disturb yourself, Mrs. Battleby. I will find my way up to his rooms.”

And so saying, he passed her and ran lightly up the stairs.

“Anyways I must go,” observed the landlady, as he disappeared, “for that gal of mine is so stupid I can’t trust her to do a single thing alone. I don’t know what my old friend Mary Stubbs was thinking of to arsk me to take her. She’s no more good than the fifth wheel of a coach! I believe she’s got a maggot in her brain. I found her making the kitchen table hop round the room yesterday, and when I told her not to be fooling like a child of five year old, she said she hadn’t touched it. If I hadn’t been a fool myself, I shouldn’t never have consented to try a gal, as had never been to service before, and come fresh from the country, like a turnip out of a field. But her mother and me, we was brought up together, and she wanted to get Hannah into service away from Settlefield where they live--something to do with a lad as she wanted to marry, I believe--and I gave in. But she’s likely to prove a plague to me, for she’s always crying after her lad, and if I do hate one thing before another, it is a love-sick gal. You might as well have a basin of gruel to help you in the ’ouse!”

“She’ll soon forget ’im in London,” said Mrs. Blamey consolingly, “there are plenty of lads about! She’ll ’ave another in a fortnight!”

“I dessay,” returned Mrs. Battleby, “but meanwhile she’ll do more damage than she’s worth. She broke half a dozen bits of crockery this week, a rattling them about, and when I tell ’er to keep ’em quiet, she cries and says she can’t ’elp it! Well, good evening, Mrs. Blamey! P’r’aps the Sig-nor will be wanting a little something extry for his supper, now that the Doctor’s come to spend the evening with him.”

And the neighbours parted until the next idle moment should arrive, in which they could relieve their minds by chattering like two magpies to each other.

Meanwhile Doctor Steinberg had run lightly up the staircase until he had reached the third story and tapped at his friend’s door. The Signor gave the permission to enter, and his thin face lighted up with pleasure as he caught sight of Steinberg.

“Ah! the dear young man!” he exclaimed, in English, which was quite intelligible, though rather broken, “and have you come to cheer my solitude? That is very good! Now I shall have a pleasant evening! I want it, my good friend, for I have had a most fatiguing day.”

“I can see that you are weary,” said the young doctor, as he grasped his hand, “and more than that, Signor, you are weak. I am afraid that amidst your multifarious duties to others, you forget your duty to yourself! Your pulse is very feeble. You have neither eaten nor drunk enough to-day. I hope you have prepared a hearty supper for yourself!”

“I know nothing! My good Mrs. Battleby arranges all these little affairs for me! I had a good breakfast before I started this morning, but as for the mid-day meal--well, it is difficult for me to eat when I am tired, and even if I could, it would be still more difficult to digest. My stomach is feeble, Steinberg. If you could give me a new stomach, my kind friend, I know you would, but it is impossible. The machine will go on working a little longer, and for myself I care not how soon it may stop altogether!”

“No! no! you must not say that! Why! you are not fifty yet. You have a good thirty years before you in which to enjoy life and make your friends happy.”

“Friends, Steinberg! with the exception of yourself, where are my friends?”

“O! you have more than you think for, Signor, and at all events one is enough to try and make you look after yourself. You are not so weak as you imagine. If you would rest by night, you would not feel the fatigue of the day so much. But these studies that you will pursue, are killing you! They would try the strength of the strongest man, repeated as they are with you, night after night, but added to the strain made upon your physical and mental faculties by day, they will end by landing you in your grave!”

“Then I shall have gained my desire,” said the Professor, with a faint smile, “and the Great Secret will be solved!”

“Perhaps! but why, then, not wait for the Change which must inevitably come to all of us, to discover what lies beyond?”

“Ah! you do not know--you do not understand----” said the Professor, “my heart is being burnt up with longing and desire. I cannot rest! there is no peace for me unless I am striving to find out one thing--to solve one mystery--I feel as if I cannot die until I have found it out!”

“Found _what_ out?” repeated Steinberg, “what is this secret you are so eager to discover the solution of? Will you not confide it to me?”

The Signor looked at the young scientist curiously, as though questioning whether he could trust him. Presently the gloom cleared off his brow and he murmured,

“Why not? You are my friend--my only friend. You would preserve it as I have done. But will you join me in trying to find the Secret out? Will you also dip into the mysteries of Occultism, and hold converse with the Unseen World?”

“That I cannot promise you,” replied the Doctor, “certainly not until I know what it is you are striving for. Remember, that I know but little of your doings, except that you shut yourself up in that little room for half the night and sit up poring over old books and manuscripts, long after you should be in bed and asleep. I conclude you study Witchcraft and Black Magic! Well! I am a Lutheran and have been reared to consider such studies wrong, and practised only by the children of the Devil, but I know nothing of them myself. What is your object in thus ruining your health? I cannot imagine any sane man who has duties in this world to fulfil, caring about such rubbish. True or false, leave it to those who have no more serious aim in life, and think only of your health and yourself!”

Ricardo leaned back in his chair and smiled furtively.

“Now, what is the use of it?” continued Steinberg, pertinaciously.

The Professor answered the question in a way that startled him.

“Have you ever loved?” he said.

“You must tell me first what you mean by the word.”

“Have you ever loved a woman intensely--passionately--loved her so much that your life was fused in her life--your soul in her soul?”

The Doctor sat up in his chair and stared at his friend. For a moment he thought he had gone mad.

“_Never!_” he said, emphatically. “As a rule, I have not cared for women. I look upon the sex as a necessary evil--something without which population cannot go on--without which, too, Nature could not exist--but as something also to be avoided as much as possible, and dealt with as little as may be!”

Ricardo sighed.

“Happy man!” he ejaculated at last, “you are to be envied, Steinberg. You have missed great happiness, and great pain.”

“Happiness!” echoed Steinberg, “is it possible, Signor, that your grave demeanour and your mysterious studies have anything to do with a woman?”

“They have everything--everything, to do with it,” exclaimed the elder man, excitedly. “Steinberg, I have never told you my history. You do not even know who I am! If I confide in you, will you hold my confidence sacred?”

The Doctor held out his hand.

“Most certainly I will. There is my hand on it. But do not stir up painful memories for my sake, Professor! If you are endeavouring to forget the Past, let it lie in it’s grave!”

“I wish you to hear it,” replied Ricardo, “I am old, I might go any day. You are my only friend. I should like you to know the truth before we part!”

“Why do you talk of yourself as an old man? What age are you?”

“I was forty-nine on my last birthday.”

“Nonsense! You are in the prime of life. This intelligence still further confirms my belief that your appearance and weakness are due to your unnatural studies alone.”

“But the pursuit of which holds the only consolation this world can afford me,” replied Ricardo. “Wait till you have heard what I have to tell you, Steinberg, and you will acknowledge that I am right. First, then, as to my identity. My name is not Ricardo. I am Paolo, Marchese di Sorrento, the last member of one of the oldest families in Italy.”

“A nobleman!” cried Steinberg, “and in this humble position? For what reason? What brought you down so low, as to be compelled to work for your daily bread?”

“A political offence, my friend, and not of my own doing! A plot against the Government, in which several nobles were concerned, and being the intimate friend and associate of most of them, my name became unfortunately mixed up with theirs, and I found my property and estates confiscated, and myself banished from Italy, before I hardly knew what it was all about. It was a great misfortune, but many have suffered in the same way. I came to England as the only land in which I could make a little money by teaching my native language, and I have managed to exist since and have found several pupils in noble families, as you well know. But my father’s name--the title that had been handed down and honoured through so many generations--I could not retain that! It would have been an infamy--a degradation!”

“No wonder that you have aged before your time--that you are of so melancholy a temperament,” observed Steinberg. “Your misfortunes have been sufficient to kill you.”

“Ah! do not mistake me, my good friend! This reverse, however cruel, could not have had the power to sap my life-strings in this manner. There was worse behind it--so much worse that the blow of losing my name and money fell almost scatheless upon me! I had already lost my world.”

Steinberg remained silent, waiting for him to proceed.

“I asked you just now if you had ever loved, and you told me, ‘No’. You are right! Keep to your resolution. Never allow yourself to be entangled in a woman’s wiles, for they are Death to those who trust in them. When I was only one-and-twenty and had just come into my father’s estates and title, I fell a victim to the charms of Leonora d’Asissi, a young lady my equal in rank and position, and after a brief courtship, we were married. Ah! Steinberg, how I loved--I adored--that woman! You, who confess to having never experienced the tender passion cannot enter into my feelings. We Italians are famous for our ardent love, and no Italian ever loved more ardently than I did. I lived only in her presence; I was never weary of contemplating her exquisite beauty; I waited on her as a slave; I made the day and night tremulous with the repetition of my love. Do not we often weary women by telling them too often that we love them, Steinberg? Are they fickle by nature, or is it only that they hate monotony? Any way Leonora, my adored wife, wearied of me and mine. She could not bear to remain in our beautiful villa in the country, where she saw no one but her enraptured lover, but pined to return to the palazzo in Rome which has been in our family for generations. Here, she would collect around her all the young married women like herself, with their attendant _cavalieres serventes_ and turn night into day with her balls and feasts and concerts. And yet I suspected nothing!”

“Was there anything to suspect?” demanded the Doctor.

The Professor started in his seat.

“Ah! now you touch the root of the matter! Was there? _Was_ there? The question haunts me night and day. But I was jealous, Steinberg, all my nation are! Where Love is so warm, doubts will intrude themselves. Perhaps we expect too much from women. Their natures are not so passionate as ours. We tax them too much--we look for a flame as ardent as our own--and when we do not find it, we begin to suspect it is bestowed upon another man. When I had my Leonora all to myself--when in the silence of night, her beautiful head lay in peaceful sleep upon my breast, I believed nothing but good of her--but when I watched her whirling round the ball room in the arms of some one of my acquaintance, or found her sitting in the conservatory with another, Suspicion would lay hold of my jealous temper, and I would question if after all, she were deceiving me, and everyone knew the bitter truth but myself.”

The recollection of those days of anguish seemed to overcome the Signor even then, for he pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the moisture from his brow.

“The relation distresses you,” remarked Steinberg, “pray do not proceed.”

“No! no! I shall not stop now until you have heard all. I have gone too far already. Amongst Leonora’s acquaintances was a young man, a mere lad called Lorenzo Centi. Some one made a joke about her and this boy before me and aroused my suspicions concerning them. I found Leonora on more than one occasion sitting apart on a couch with young Centi--once, with their hands clasped together--and I forbad him the house in consequence. But a rumour reached my ears that, when I was away from home, my wife’s woman was used to fetch Centi to her, and they spent the time of my absence together. I determined to watch. I professed to be going for a night into the country to see after my farm, but I returned at midnight, and found them supping together in Leonora’s boudoir. I rushed in upon them furiously, and my wife turned and laughed in my face--knowing all my deep love for her, she laughed at my disappointment and she drove me mad. Before God, Steinberg, if she had only cried, or seemed frightened, or sorry, I should have spared her--I loved her so intensely--but her laugh raised all the Devil in me and before the smile had left her lips, she lay dead at my feet.”

The stoical German sprang away from Ricardo’s side. He had been prepared for much, but not for murder.

“No! no! you must be mistaken,” he exclaimed; “you do not mean that you killed her!”

“_Killed her!_ Of course I did, and would have killed her lover into the bargain, but that he escaped before I could lay hands on him. She laughed at my distress, and I stabbed her to the heart with my dagger. Better dead, a thousand times, I thought, than live a lie! But now--now----”

“You are sorry--you repent----” said Steinberg, sympathetically, “Yes! I can understand it perfectly! But it was done in a moment of anger--you were not master of yourself--you would act very differently were the time to come over again.”

“Not if she were false,” cried the Professor, “I would kill her over again this moment, if she deceived me! But did she--did she? That is the question that harasses me now.”

“What! have you any doubts upon the subject?”

“I have every doubt--they torture me day and night. What proofs had I of her guilt? She was young and careless and very, very beautiful! Might she not have played with fire without considering the consequences--without being burnt? She laughed at me, it is true--but she did not know the depth of a man’s love--the strength of a man’s jealousy.

“She did not think, my poor Leonora, that my hand was on the fatal weapon I carried in my breast. Ah, Steinberg, it is better like you never to have known the rapture of possessing a woman, than to feel you have sent her out of the world, when perhaps she was innocent.”

“It is terrible,” said the Doctor, “but was it never cleared up?”

“_Never!_ In my country, we think far less of such things than you do in yours. A husband who kills his wife through jealousy, and especially when he has found her with her lover, is too common an offender to provoke condign punishment. I was had up before the tribunal to afford an explanation of my wife’s death, and the reasons I gave were considered sufficient. I left the country afterwards, more to escape from my maddening recollections than to avoid Society--I also had a burning desire to meet young Centi and give him his due, but he was so successfully concealed by his family, that I never gained my wish. Perhaps it was for the best. My hands might have been imbrued in a second unnecessary murder! When, after many years’ wandering, I ventured to return to Rome, it was to find that my estates were no longer mine, and I was doomed to exile. Now, you have my history, Steinberg, and you may thank God that you have escaped so sad a one!”

Karl Steinberg was silent for awhile--so was his companion. This narrative had rather shocked the German’s sensibilities, while it had excited great sympathy for the lonely man before him, who had been bereft of all he held dear, or that made life worth living for him.

The Doctor, with his want of faith in Women, had not much doubt in his own mind that the Signor’s wife had merited her doom, but he declined to express an opinion on the subject either way. After a few minutes’ pause, he said, with the view of turning a conversation which had become so painful to both of them,

“But what has all this to do, Professor, with your study of the Black Art?”