Albert Kinross

“ Somers continued: “I can see it now. Again its close air stifles me; again I see my reflection in the great mirror that filled one wall; again I hold up my candle and try to draw the curtains so that I may breathe fresh air. I get the curtains apart and look for the window that I want to fling wide open. There is no window—only a bricked recess. And then for the first time I feel that I have been trapped. It is only a suspicion; but it grows ... I am at the door now—and there is no handle to it! In very truth I am trapped, just as poor Horace was trapped, and the German, and all those others. ”

“ Rome that winter and early spring. I know that he usually avoided all such sensational items, confining his interest to the political and literary columns, and only turning his attention to matters criminal or of a legal turn when the culprit was actually in the dock, or plaintiff, or defendant, or whatever the fellows are called who are tried for libel or bigamy or some commercial fraud. Obscure paragraphs dealing with just as obscure visitors to a foreign city meant little or nothing to Archie Somers, until suddenly he read the name of Horace Bligh. ”

“ And in a secret drawer—the police, once started, knew their work—were notes all neatly bundled, the bulk of them Italian, with Russian roubles, German marks, our own sovereigns, and American dollars as well, as though kept back for no other reason but that they were curious, and strange, and perfectly safe.”
Archie had finished. So that was the true story, the awful, unrelieved horror that in a single night had changed the boy into a prematurely stricken man. ”

“ He was so young, so brave, so strong, just like the lost friend he had described to me, and whom I had barely known. And he was simple too, though, like most youngsters, he didn't know it. A child could have “taken him in” as well, I thought, after he had left me.
When he had gone, I got my keys and found a Browning and a Smith and Wesson I had carried in Russia. I cleaned the Smith and Wesson, sent my man out for fifty cartridges, and wrote a note that would go round to young Somers with the revolver. “To be used in case of need,” it said; and ended, “Good luck!” ”

“ Considerable consternation exists among the foreign visitors to Rome this winter, no less than eight or nine of whom, despite the increased watchfulness of the Roman detective service, have mysteriously disappeared. Too little attention has been paid to these unaccountable disappearances, and it 1s notorious that those interested in the tourist industry have done their best to hush them up. ”

“ No other motive than robbery can have prompted these outrages, and there can be little doubt but that a considerable booty must have rewarded the gang concerned, as, in each case, the victim belonged to the well-to-do class; and it is, moreover, a matter of common knowledge that, as often as not, the average tourist in Italy carries a considerable sum of money in his pocket-book. ”

“ When she brought somebody home, he gave her sweets; when she returned alone, he beat her—she was right in that. They've sent her to one of the convents. She really was his daughter, it appears, and much of the account he gave of himself was true. The servant, the old woman who waited on us, was never found. ”

“ But it is time to speak out and warn intending visitors that actually some three or four strangers, chiefly English and Americans, have left their hotels to do the familiar sights of the Eternal City, and that nothing more has been seen or heard of these victims. ”

“ The individual or individuals responsible for these outrages do their dastardly work with the utmost cunning; for, in every instance, the tourist who has disappeared is a single traveller, unattached to any party or agency. Thus some days, or even weeks, must elapse before any serious effort or inquiry is made on his behalf, and it is quite conceivable that, outside the hotel or pension at which he has been staying, no notice whatsoever is taken of the missing stranger. The proprietors of the Hotel Monte Giordano, however, yesterday informed the police that a young English visitor, a Mr. ”