Read Online She Walks in Darkness by Evangeline Walton - Free Book Online
Authors: Evangeline Walton
Ads: Link
English. And the dates are right.”
The writing was in English. The first date—April 30, 1945—seemed to leap at me. I heard my own voice demanding, “Where did you get this?”
“I found it upon the flagstones, near the kitchen door. While I searched for my wheel.” His voice was very grave. “Someone must have been in great haste—or in great fear—to have dropped it there. Someone must have been very clever, too, to have found what the Allied searchers could not find when they were going over the villa, inch by inch, for any trace of Roger Carstairs.”
“You mean—somebody knew where to look—?” My lips were stiff.
“Because he himself had hidden it there, signora. Or had seen the killer hide it.”
“Mattia Rossi! Then he was the servant who betrayed Prince Mino.”
Floriano said quietly, “Yes. That much I knew already. And when I found this book, I knew that you had not imagined your dead man. And I hurried back to you.”
Again his words evoked that terrible, lurking presence, that menace that even now might be creeping through the vaults below.
It could even be nearer. Perhaps listening at the door....
I thrust that image away. I said, “But if Mattia had the book, why didn’t he show it? To prove his story?”
“And give up the clue that might lead to a golden treasure?” Floriano’s smile was dry. “Our Tuscan peasants are shrewder than that, signora.”
“But he didn’t use it!”
“He could not read English. Perhaps he waited, hoping to find someone who did. Someone he could trust.”
“And that person killed him? Or else”—I shivered again—“some way Prince Mino did get back—”
“Then he would have taken his revenge, calling it justice. He never doubted his right to punish.” For a moment Floriano’s mouth and eyes were very grim; then he relaxed. “But we have agreed that the prince cannot have come back in the flesh, signora, and surely we are not such superstitious fools as to fear his ghost. No, more likely old Mattia trusted the wrong man, was betrayed in his turn. Let us see what we can make of this diary, for that is what it seems to be. You whose native tongue is English may be able to read much that I cannot.”
It was not easy reading. A great brownish stain had soaked through the book; whatever my hands touched that, I shrank away, as if from unbearable cold. But finally—using some guesswork—we did manage to piece together a fairly continuous narrative.
Roger Carstairs had come to the villa by night, crawling through thickets that normally he or any man would have thought impassable. Scratched and bleeding, he finally had come upon what he had hoped for: a hole covered by bushes, a hole that turned out to be a vertical shaft leading down into unknown depths. Such hidden vaults honeycomb the now barren Tuscan hills.
“I knew I was taking a risk, going down in there with no light, but I figured that that way I could shake off any men who might still be trailing me and find a place to rest.”
Shelter he found, but also fear. This was very different from his pre-war, professional visits to such Etruscan sites. Soon he realized that he was wandering in a labyrinth at least as inexplicable as the famous cuccumella of Camars: a gigantic, uncanny spiderweb of stone passages and chambers.
“I never had been so thankful for a good mechanical memory. Right turn, left turn—fifth right turn, fifteenth left turn—it’s after your counting gets up into the teens that you begin to have some doubts about the jolly old memory, after all.”
Exhausted, faint with hunger, he plodded on and on down those entangling, smothering passages. The silence and the darkness were awful; he could see nothing, he could hear nothing but his own footsteps, his own heavy breathing. “Air must have been coming from somewhere, but there wasn’t much of it, and it seemed to be getting worse. And when I tried to turn back, I found out there’d been some truth in the
The writing was in English. The first date—April 30, 1945—seemed to leap at me. I heard my own voice demanding, “Where did you get this?”
“I found it upon the flagstones, near the kitchen door. While I searched for my wheel.” His voice was very grave. “Someone must have been in great haste—or in great fear—to have dropped it there. Someone must have been very clever, too, to have found what the Allied searchers could not find when they were going over the villa, inch by inch, for any trace of Roger Carstairs.”
“You mean—somebody knew where to look—?” My lips were stiff.
“Because he himself had hidden it there, signora. Or had seen the killer hide it.”
“Mattia Rossi! Then he was the servant who betrayed Prince Mino.”
Floriano said quietly, “Yes. That much I knew already. And when I found this book, I knew that you had not imagined your dead man. And I hurried back to you.”
Again his words evoked that terrible, lurking presence, that menace that even now might be creeping through the vaults below.
It could even be nearer. Perhaps listening at the door....
I thrust that image away. I said, “But if Mattia had the book, why didn’t he show it? To prove his story?”
“And give up the clue that might lead to a golden treasure?” Floriano’s smile was dry. “Our Tuscan peasants are shrewder than that, signora.”
“But he didn’t use it!”
“He could not read English. Perhaps he waited, hoping to find someone who did. Someone he could trust.”
“And that person killed him? Or else”—I shivered again—“some way Prince Mino did get back—”
“Then he would have taken his revenge, calling it justice. He never doubted his right to punish.” For a moment Floriano’s mouth and eyes were very grim; then he relaxed. “But we have agreed that the prince cannot have come back in the flesh, signora, and surely we are not such superstitious fools as to fear his ghost. No, more likely old Mattia trusted the wrong man, was betrayed in his turn. Let us see what we can make of this diary, for that is what it seems to be. You whose native tongue is English may be able to read much that I cannot.”
It was not easy reading. A great brownish stain had soaked through the book; whatever my hands touched that, I shrank away, as if from unbearable cold. But finally—using some guesswork—we did manage to piece together a fairly continuous narrative.
Roger Carstairs had come to the villa by night, crawling through thickets that normally he or any man would have thought impassable. Scratched and bleeding, he finally had come upon what he had hoped for: a hole covered by bushes, a hole that turned out to be a vertical shaft leading down into unknown depths. Such hidden vaults honeycomb the now barren Tuscan hills.
“I knew I was taking a risk, going down in there with no light, but I figured that that way I could shake off any men who might still be trailing me and find a place to rest.”
Shelter he found, but also fear. This was very different from his pre-war, professional visits to such Etruscan sites. Soon he realized that he was wandering in a labyrinth at least as inexplicable as the famous cuccumella of Camars: a gigantic, uncanny spiderweb of stone passages and chambers.
“I never had been so thankful for a good mechanical memory. Right turn, left turn—fifth right turn, fifteenth left turn—it’s after your counting gets up into the teens that you begin to have some doubts about the jolly old memory, after all.”
Exhausted, faint with hunger, he plodded on and on down those entangling, smothering passages. The silence and the darkness were awful; he could see nothing, he could hear nothing but his own footsteps, his own heavy breathing. “Air must have been coming from somewhere, but there wasn’t much of it, and it seemed to be getting worse. And when I tried to turn back, I found out there’d been some truth in the
Similar Books
