Max Pemberton - Murder Mysteries Boxed-Set - 40+ Books in One Edition

Something akin to a trance of reflection fell upon me. I watched the scene almost as a man intoxicated by the very atmosphere of it. A sense of time and place and personality was lost to me. The great book of the unknown had been opened before me, and I read on entranced. This, I say, was the personal note of it. Let me put it aside to speak more intimately of reality and of that to which reality conducted me.

Now, the cave of the mountain, I judge, had a depth of some third of a mile. It was in aspect not unlike what one might have imagined a mighty subterranean cathedral to have been. Of vast height, the limestone vault above showed me stalactites of such great size and infinite variety that they surpassed all ideas I had conceived of Nature and her wonders.

Depending in a thousand forms, here as foliated corbels, there as vaulting shafts whose walls had fallen and left them standing, now as quatrefoils and cusps, sometimes seeming to suggest monster gargoyles, the beauty, the number, and the magnificence of them could scarcely have been surpassed by any wonders of limestone in all the world. That there were but few corresponding stalagmites rising up from the rocky ground must be set down to the use made of this vast chamber and the work then being undertaken in it. No fewer than nine furnaces I counted at a first glance—glowing furnaces through whose doors the dazzling whiteness of unspeakable fires blinded the eyes and illuminated the scene as though by unearthly lanterns.

And there were men everywhere, half-naked men, leather-aproned and shining as though water had been poured upon their bodies. These fascinated me as no mere natural beauty of the scene or the surprise of it had done. They were the servants of the men to whom I had thrown down the glove so recklessly. They were the servants of those who, armed and unknown, sailed the high seas in their flight from cities and from justice. This much I had known from the first. Their numbers remained to astonish me beyond all measure.

And of what nature was their task at the furnaces? I had assumed at the first thought that they were workers in precious metals, in the gold and silver which the cleverest thieves of Europe shipped here to their hands. Not a little to my astonishment, the facts did not at the moment bear out my supposition. Much of the work seemed shipwright’s business or such casting as might be done at any Sheffield blast furnace. Forging there was, and shaping and planing—not a sign of any criminal occupation, or one that would bear witness against them. The circumstance, however, did not deceive me. It fitted perfectly into the plan I had prepared against my coming to Santa Maria, and General Fordibras’s discovery of my journey. Of course, these men would not be working precious metals—not at least to-night. This I had said when recollection of my own situation came back to me suddenly; and realising the folly of further espionage, I turned about to find Okyada and quit the spot.

Then I discovered that my servant had left the plateau, and that I stood face to face with the ugliest and most revolting figure of a Jew it has ever been my misfortune to look upon.

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Dr. Fabos Meets the Jew.

Imagine a man some five feet six in height, weak and tottering upon crazy knees, and walking laboriously by the aid of a stick. A deep green shade habitually covered protruding and bloodshot eyes, but for the nonce it had been lifted upon a high and cone-shaped forehead, the skin of which bore the scars of ancient wounds and more than one jagged cut. A goat’s beard, long and unkempt and shaggy, depended from a chin as sharp as a wedge; the nose was prominent, but not without a suggestion of power; the hands were old and tremulous, but quivering still with the desire of life. So much a glare of the furnace’s light showed me at a glance. When it died down, I was left alone in the darkness with this revolting figure, and had but the dread suggestion of its presence for my companion.

“Dr. Fabos of London. Is it not Dr. Fabos? I am an old man, and my eyes do not help me as once they did. But I think it is Dr. Fabos!”

I turned upon him and declared myself, since any other course would have made me out afraid of him.

“I am Dr. Fabos—yes, that is so. And you, I think, are the Polish Jew they call Val Imroth?”

He laughed, a horrible dry throaty laugh, and drew a little nearer to me.

“I expected you before—three days ago,” he said, just in the tone of a cat purring. “You made a very slow passage, Doctor—a very slow passage, indeed. All is well that ends well, however. Here you are at Santa Maria, and there is your yacht down yonder. Let me welcome you to the Villa.”

So he stood, fawning before me, his voice almost a whisper in my ear. What to make of it I knew not at all. Harry Avenhill, the young thief I captured at Newmarket, had spoken of this dread figure, but always in connection with Paris, or Vienna, or Rome. Yet here he was at Santa Maria, his very presence tainting the air as with a chill breath of menace and of death. My own rashness in coming to the island never appeared so utterly to be condemned, so entirely without excuse. This fearful old man might be deaf to every argument I had to offer. There was no crime in all the story he had not committed or would not commit. With General Fordibras I could have dealt—but with him!

“Yes,” I said quite calmly, “that is my yacht. She will start for Gibraltar to-morrow if I do not return to her. It will depend upon my friend, General Fordibras.”

I said it with what composure I could command—for this was all my defence. His reply was a low laugh and a bony finger which touched my hand as with a die of ice.

“It is a dangerous passage to Gibraltar, Dr. Fabos. Do not dwell too much upon it. There are ships which never see the shore again. Yours might be one of them.”

“Unberufen. The German language is your own. If my boat does not return to Gibraltar, and thence to London, in that case, Herr Imroth, you may have many ships at Santa Maria, and they will fly the white ensign. Be good enough to credit me with some small share of prudence. I could scarcely stand here as I do had I not measured the danger—and provided against it. You were not then in my calculations. Believe me, they are not to be destroyed even by your presence.”

Now, he listened to this with much interest and evident patience; and I perceived instantly that it had not failed to make an impression upon him. To be frank, I feared nothing from design, but only from accident, and although I had him covered by my revolver, I never once came near to touching the trigger of it. So mutually in accord, indeed, were our thoughts that, when next he spoke, he might have been giving tongue to my apprehensions:

“A clever man—who relies upon the accident of papers. My dear friend, would all the books in our great library in Rome save you from yonder men if I raised my voice to call them? Come, Dr. Fabos, you are either a fool or a hero. You hunt me, Valentine Imroth, whom the police of twenty cities have hunted in vain. You visit us as a schoolboy might have done, and yet you are as well acquainted with your responsibilities as I am. What shall I say of you? What do you say of yourself when you ask the question, ‘Will these men let me go free? Will they permit my yacht to make Europe again?’ Allow me to answer that, and in my turn I will tell you why you stand here safe beside me when at a word of mine, at a nod, one of these white doors would open and you would be but a little whiff of ashes before a man could number ten. No, my friend; I do not understand you. Some day I shall do so—and then God help you!”

It was wonderful to hear how little there was either of vain boasting or of melodramatic threat in this strange confession. The revolting hawk-eyed Jew put his cards upon the table just as frankly as any simpering miss might have done. I perplexed him, therefore he let me live. My own schemes were so many childish imaginings to be derided. The yacht, Europe, the sealed papers which would tell my story when they were opened—he thought that he might mock them as a man mocks an enemy who has lost his arms by the way. In this, however, I perceived that I must now undeceive him. The time had come to play my own cards—the secret cards which not even his wit had brought into our reckoning.