by Robert Reed
either actively or sympathetically, with every secret society that
menaced the good government of Italy .
It was a hot June afternoon, in the year ‘99, when a man and two
youths sat at their midday meal in the gloomy dining-room of the
Palazzo .
The man who sat at the head of the table was, despite his age,
a broad-shouldered man of apparent vitality; a leonine head sur-
mounted by a mane of grey hair would have distinguished him with-
out the full beard which fell over his black velvet waistcoat .
Yet, for all his patriarchal appearance, there was something in
the seamed white face, in the cold eyes which stared from under his
busy brows, which was sinister and menacing .
He ate in silence, scarcely troubling to answer the questions
which were put to him .
The boy on his right was a beautiful lad of seventeen; he had the
ivory complexion, the perfect, clean-cut, patrician features which
characterized the Italian nobility . His lustrous brown eyes, his deli-
cate mouth, his almost effeminate chin, testified for the race from
which he sprang .
The young man sitting opposite was four years older . He was at
the stage when youth was merging into manhood, with disastrous
consequences to facial contours . He seemed thin, almost hollow-
jawed, and only the steady quality of his grave eyes saved him from
positive ugliness .
“But, father,” asked the younger lad, “what makes you think that
the Government suspects that you know about the ‘Red Hand’?”
The older youth said nothing, but his inquiring eyes were fixed
upon his father .
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Salvani Festini brought his mind back to the present with a start .
“Eh?” he asked .
His voice was gruff, but not unkindly, as he addressed the boy;
and the light of unconscious pride which shone in his eyes as he
looked at the youth, softened the forbidding expression of his face .
“I am very well informed, my son,” he said with a gentle growl .
“You know we have excellent information . The carbineers are pur-
suing their investigations, and that infernal friend of yours”—he
turned to the elder son—“is at the head of the inquisitors .”
The youth addressed smiled .
“Who is this?” he asked innocently .
The old man shot a glance of suspicion at his son .
“Tillizini,” he said shortly . “The old fool—why doesn’t he keep
to his books and his lectures?”
“He has been very kind to me,” said the younger man . He spoke
thoughtfully, reflectively. “I am sorry he has annoyed you, father;
but it is his business—this investigation of crime .”
“Crime!” roared the old man . “How dare you, a son of mine,
sitting at my own table, refer to the actions of the ‘Red Hand’ as
crime!”
His face went red with rage, and he cast a glance of malevolence
at his heir which might well have shocked a more susceptible man .
But Antonio Festini was used to such exhibitions . He was neither
embarrassed nor distressed by this fresh exhibition of his father’s
dislike . He knew, and did not resent, the favouritism shown to Sim-
one, his brother . It did not make him love his brother less, nor dislike
his father more .
Antonio Festini had many qualities which his countrymen do not
usually possess . This phlegmatic, philosophical attitude of mind had
been bred in him . Some remote ancestor, cool, daring, possibly with
a touch of colder blood in his ancestry, had transmitted to this calm
youth some of the power of detachment .
He knew his father hated the old professor of anthropology at
Florence; for the Festinis, even to this day, preserved the spirit of
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antagonism which the Sienese of half a thousand years ago had ad-
opted to the Florentine .
There were schools enough in Siena; a college most famous for
its lawyers and its doctors .
Simone was graduating there, and what was good enough for
Simone should surely be good enough for Antonio .
But the elder son had chosen Florence with that deliberation
which had always been his peculiarity, even from his earliest child-
hood, and in face of all opposition, in defiance of all the Festini
tradition, it was to Florence he went .
Tillizini, that remarkable scientist, had conceived a friendship for
the boy; had taken him under his wing, and had trained him in his
own weird, irregular, and inconsequent way .
Tillizini was a master of crime, and he possessed an encyclo-
paedic knowledge of men . He was at the beck and call of the secret
police from one end of Italy to the other, and, so rumour said, was
in receipt of retaining fees from the governments of other nations .
It was Tillizini who had set himself to work to track down the
“Red Hand” which had terrorized the South of Italy for so many
years, and had now extended its sphere of operations to the north .
And it was a hateful fact that his work had been crowned with
success . His investigations had laid by the heels no less a person
than the considerable Matteo degli Orsoni, the Roman lawyer, who,
for so many years, had directed the operations of one of the most
powerful sections of the “Red Hand .”
There was something like fear in the old man’s breast, though he
was too good a Festini to display it; and it was fear which leavened
his rage .
“You shall hear a different tale of this Tillizini,” he growled,
“mark you that, Antonio . Some day he will be found dead— a knife
in his heart, or his throat cut, or a bullet wound in his head—who
knows? The ‘Red Hand’ is no amusing organization .” He looked
long and keenly at his son . Simone leant over, his elbows on the
table, his chin resting on his hands, and eyed his brother with dispas-
sionate interest .
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“What does Tillizini know of me?” asked the old man suddenly .
“What have you told him?”
Antonio smiled .
“That is an absurd question, father,” he said; “you do not imagine
that I should speak to Signor Tillizini of you?”
“Why not?” said the other gruffly. “Oh! I know your breed. There
is something of your mother in you . Those Bonnichi would sell their
wives for a hundred lira!”
Not even the reference to his mother aroused the young man to
anger . He sat with his hands thrust into the pockets of his riding
breeches, his head bent a little forward, looking at his father steadily,
speculatively, curiously .
For a few minutes they stared at one another, and the boy on the
other side of the table glanced from father to brother, from brother
to father, eagerly .
At last the old man withdrew his eyes with a shrug, and Antonio
leant across the table, and plucked two grapes from a big silver dish
in the centre, with a hand to which neither annoyance nor
fear con-
tributed a tremor .
The old man turned to his favourite .
“You may expect the birri here to-day or to-morrow,” he said .
“There will be a search for papers . A crowd of dirty Neapolitans will
go rummaging through this house . I suppose you would like me to
ask your friend, Tillizini, to stay to dinner?” he said, turning to the
other with a little sneer .
“As to that, you must please yourself, father; I should be very
delighted if you did .”
“By faith, you would,” snarled the old man . “If I had an assurance
that the old dog would choke, I’d invite him . I know your Tillizini,”
he said gratingly, “Paulo Tillizini .” He laughed, but there was no
humour in his laughter .
Antonio rose from the table, folded his serviette into a square
and placed it neatly between the two Venetian goblets which were
in front of him .
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“I have your permission to retire?” he said, with a ceremonious
little bow .
A jerk of the head was the only answer .
With another little bow to his brother, the young man left the
room. He walked through the flagged and gloomy hall to the ponder-
ous door of the Palazzo .
A servant in faded livery opened the door, and he stepped out
into the blinding sunlight . The heat struck up at him from the paved
street as from a blast furnace .
He had no definite plans for spending the afternoon, but he was
anxious to avoid any further conflict with his father; and though
he himself did not approve of the association which his house had
formed with the many desperate, guilty bands which tyrannized
over Italy, yet he was anxious to think out a method by which the
inevitable exposure and disgrace might be avoided .
There was no question of sentiment as far as he was concerned .
He had reached the point where he had come to regard not only his
father, but his younger brother, so eager to assist and so anxious for
the day when he would be able to take an active part in the opera-
tions of the League, as people outside the range of his affections .
It was natural that he should gravitate towards the Piazza del
Campo . All Siena moved naturally to this historic fan-like space,
with its herring-boned brick pavement, and its imperishable associa-
tion with the trials and triumphs of Siena .
He stood by the broad central pavement which marks the course
of the Pallio, deep in thought, oblivious of the many curious glances
which were thrown in his direction . For despite the heat of the day,
all Siena was abroad .
Had he been less engrossed by his thoughts, he might have re-
garded it as curious that the Sienese, who hold this hour sacred to
the siesta, should have so thronged the square and the street, on a
hot June afternoon .
Standing there, absorbed by his thoughts, he heard his name spo-
ken softly behind him, and turned .
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He snatched off his soft felt hat with a smile, and extended his
hand .
“I did not expect to see you, Signor Tillizini,” he said .
The pleasure of the meeting, however, was over-clouded a sec-
ond later, as he realized with a sense of apprehension that the old
professor’s visit was not without gloomy significance to his house.
Professor Tillizini, at that time, was in his eightieth year . As
straight as a die, his emaciated and aesthetic face was relieved by
two burning eyes in which the soul of the man throbbed and lived .
He took the arm of his pupil and led him across the piazza at a
slow pace .
“Antonio mio,” he said with grave affection, “I am come because
the Government desires certain information . You know, although I
have not told you, that we are inquiring into a certain organization .”
He laid his thin white hand upon the other’s shoulder, and stopped,
peering down into the boy’s face with keen attention .
“Antonio,” he said slowly, “that investigation is to be directed
toward your father and his actions .”
The other nodded . “I know,” he said simply .
“I am glad you know,” said Tillizini, with a little sigh of relief . “It
has rather worried me . I wanted to tell you some time ago that such
an inquiry was inevitable, but I did not think I would be doing my
duty to the State if I gave that information .”
Antonio smiled a little sadly .
“It does not matter, Signor,” he said; “as a matter of fact, my
father knows, and is expecting you .”
Tillizini nodded .
“That I expected too,” he said, “or rather let me be frank—I hoped
he would be; for a policeman expected is a policeman defeated,” he
smiled .
They walked a little way in silence, then—
“Are you satisfied in your mind that my father is concerned in all
these outrages?” asked Antonio .
The old man looked at him sharply .
“Are you not also?” he asked .
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The heir of the Festinis made no reply . As if by mutual consent
they changed the subject and spoke of other matters .
The old man was awaiting the arrival of the police officers; that
much Antonio guessed .
They spoke of the college at Florence and of mutual friends .
Then, by easy stages, the professor approached his favourite sub-
ject—the subject of his life-work .
“It is a thousand pities, is it not?” he said, “that, having got so far,
the good God will not give me another hundred years of life?”
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders .
“At the end of which time I should require another hundred,”
he said philosophically . “It is as well, perhaps, that we cannot have
our desires. “It would have satisfied me,” he continued, “had I a son
to carry on my work . Here again I am denied . I have not, I admit,”
he said, with that naiveté which was his charm, “even in my life
provided myself with a wife . That was an oversight for which I am
now being punished .”
He stopped as a tall officer in the uniform of the carbineers came
swinging across the Piazza del Campo, and Antonio Festini instinc-
tively stepped away from his master’s side .
The two spoke together, and by and by, with a little nod of fare-
well and a fleeting shadow of pity in his eyes, Tillizini accompanied
the tall officer in the direction of the Palazzo Festini.
Antonio watched him until he was out of sight . Then he resumed
his aimless pacing up and down the Piazza, his hands behind his
back, his head sunk forward on his breast .
Tillizini accompanied the tall officer to the Festini Palace. He
pulled the rusty bell that hung by the side of the great door, and was
admitted .
He was conducted with all the ceremony which his obvious rank
demanded—for was not there an officer of carbineers accompany-
ing him, and did not that officer treat
him with great deference?—to
the big salon of the Festinis .
It was an apartment bleak and bare . The ancient splendours of
the painted ceiling were dim and dingy, the marble flagged floor was
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broken in places, and no attempt had been made to repair it . The few
chairs, and the French table which had been pushed against the wall,
seemed lost in that wilderness of chilly marble .
In a few moments Count Festini came in . He was still dressed
in his velvet coat and waistcoat, and the riding breeches and boots
which he and his sons invariably wore, for they were great horse-
men, and had but that one taste in common .
He favoured Tillizini with a bow, which the professor returned .
“I am at your Excellency’s disposition,” he said formally, and
waited .
“Count Festini,” said Tillizini, “I have come upon an unpleasant
mission .”
“That is regrettable,” said Count Festini shortly .
“It is my duty to ask you to allow me to conduct a personal ex-
amination of your papers .”
“That is not only unfortunate, but outrageous,” said Festini, yet
without the sign of irritation which the carbineer officer, his fingers
nervously twitching the whistle which would summon his men, had
expected .
“It is not my wish,” Tillizini went on, “to make this visit any
more disagreeable to your Excellency than is necessary, therefore
I ask you to regard me rather as a friend who desires to clear your
name from aspersions which——”
“You will spare me your speeches,” said Count Festini shortly .
“I know you, Paulo Tillizini . I thought you were a gentleman, and
entrusted you with the education of my son. I find you are a po-
liceman . In these days,” he shrugged his shoulders—” the Italian
nobility—and if I remember aright, you come from the house of one
Buonsignori?——”
Tillizini bowed .
“In these days,” Festini went on, “it is necessary, I presume, for
our decaying nobility to find some means of providing portions for
their marriageable daughters .”
“In my case,” said Tillizini, “that is unnecessary .”
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He spoke suavely and calmly: every word which Count Festini
had uttered was, by the code which both men understood, a deadly