Penny Dreadful Multipack Vol. 1 (Illustrated. Annotated. 'Wagner The Wehr-Wolf,' 'Varney The Vampire,' 'The Mysteries of London Vol. 1' + Bonus Features) (Penny Dreadful Multipacks) (11 page)

“Come with me, and I will show
you by which way you and your comrades must effect an entry,” said Antonio.

The valet and the robber-chief
now moved away from the spot where they had stood to hold the above
conversation; and the moment they had turned the adjacent angle of the mansion,
Nisida hastened to regain her apartment by the private staircase—resolving,
 
 however, to see Wagner as early
as possible in the morning.

THE LAST MEETING OF AGNES AND THE
STRANGER LADY

While
 
all nature was wrapped in the
listening stillness of admiration at the rising sun, Fernand Wagner dragged
himself painfully toward his home.

His garments were besmeared with
mud and dirt; they were torn, too, in many places; and here and there were
stains of blood, still wet, upon them.

In fact, had he been dragged by a
wild horse through a thicket of brambles, he could scarcely have appeared in a
more wretched plight.

His countenance was ghastly pale;
terror still flashed from his eyes, and despair sat on his lofty brow.

Stealing through the most
concealed part of his garden, he was approaching his own mansion with the air
of a man who returns home in the morning after having perpetrated some dreadful
deed of turpitude under cover of the night.

But the watchful eyes of a woman
have marked his coming from the lattice of her window; and in a few minutes
Agnes, light as a fawn, came bounding toward him, exclaiming, “Oh! what a night
of uneasiness have I passed, Fernand! But at length thou art restored to
me—thou whom I have ever loved so fondly; although,” she added, mournfully, “I
abandoned thee for so long a time!”

And she embraced him tenderly.

“Agnes!” cried Fernand, repulsing
her with an impatience which she had never experienced at his hands before:
“wherefore thus act the spy upon me? Believe me, that although we pass
ourselves off as brother and sister, yet I do not renounce that authority which
the real nature of those ties that bind us together——”

“Fernand! Fernand! this to me!”
exclaimed Agnes, bursting into tears. “Oh! how have I deserved such
reproaches?”

“My dearest girl, pardon me,
forgive me!” cried Wagner, in a tone of bitter anguish. “My God! I ought not to
upbraid thee for that watchfulness during my absence, and that joy at my
return, which prove that you love me! Again I say, pardon me, dearest Agnes.”

“You need not ask me, Fernand,”
was the reply. “Only speak kindly to me——”

“I do, I will, Agnes,”
interrupted Wagner. “But leave me now! Let me regain my own chamber alone; I
have reasons, urgent reasons for so doing; and this afternoon, Agnes, I shall
be composed—collected again. Do you proceed by that path; I will take this.”

And, hastily pressing her hand,
Wagner broke abruptly away.

For a few moments Agnes stood
looking after him in vacant astonishment at his extraordinary manner, and also
at his
 
 alarming appearance,
but concerning which latter she had not dared to question him.

When he had entered the mansion
by a private door, Agnes turned and pursued her way along a circuitous path
shaded on each side by dark evergreens, and which was the one he had directed
her to take so as to regain the front gate of the dwelling.

But scarcely had she advanced a
dozen paces, when a sudden rustling among the trees alarmed her; and in an
instant a female form—tall, majestic, and with a dark veil thrown over her
head, stood before her.

Agnes uttered a faint shriek:
for, although the lady’s countenance was concealed by the veil, she had no
difficulty in recognizing the stranger who had already terrified her on three
previous occasions, and who seemed to haunt her.

And, as if to dispel all doubt as
to the identity, the majestic lady suddenly tore aside her veil, and disclosed
to the trembling, shrinking Agnes, features already too well known.

But, if the lightning of those
brilliant, burning, black eyes had seemed terrible on former occasions, they
were now absolutely blasting, and Agnes fell upon her knees, exclaiming,
“Mercy! mercy! how have I offended you?”

For a few moments those
basilisk-eyes darted forth shafts of fire and flame, and the red lips quivered
violently, and the haughty brow contracted menacingly, and Agnes was stupefied,
stunned, fascinated, terribly fascinated by that tremendous rage, the vengeance
of which seemed ready to explode against her.

But only a few moments lasted
that dreadful scene; for the lady, whose entire appearance was that of an
avenging fiend in the guise of a beauteous woman, suddenly drew a sharp poniard
from its sheath in her bodice, and plunged it into the bosom of the hapless
Agnes.

The victim fell back; but not a
shriek—not a sound escaped her lips. The blow was well aimed, the poniard was
sharp and went deep, and death followed instantaneously.

For nearly a minute did the
murderess stand gazing on the corpse—the corpse of one erst so beautiful; and
her countenance, gradually relaxing from its stern, implacable expression,
assumed an air of deep remorse—of bitter, bitter compunction.

But probably yielding to the
sudden thought that she must provide for her own safety, the murderess drew
forth the dagger from the white bosom in which it was buried: hastily wiped it
upon a leaf; returned it to the sheath; and, replacing the veil over her
countenance, hurried rapidly away from the scene of her fearful crime.

THE SBIRRI—THE ARREST

Scarcely
 
ten minutes had elapsed since the
unfortunate Agnes was thus suddenly cut off in the bloom of youth and beauty,
when a lieutenant of police, with his guard of sbirri, passed along the road
skirting Wagner’s garden.

They were evidently in search of
some malefactor, for, stopping
 
 in
their course, they began to deliberate on the business which they had in hand.

“Which way could he possibly have
gone?” cried one, striking the butt-end of his pike heavily upon the ground.

“How could we possibly have
missed him?” exclaimed another.

“Stephano is not so easily
caught, my men,” observed the lieutenant. “He is the most astute and cunning of
the band of which he is the captain. And yet, I wish we had pounced upon him,
since we were so nicely upon his track.”

“And a thousand ducats offered by
the state for his capture,” suggested one of the sbirri.

“Yes; ’tis annoying!” ejaculated
the lieutenant, “but I could have sworn he passed this way.”

“And I could bear the same
evidence, signor,” observed the first speaker. “Maybe he has taken refuge in
those bushes.”

“Not unlikely. We are fools to
grant him a moment’s vantage ground. Over the fence, my men, and beat amongst
these gardens.”

Thus speaking, the lieutenant set
the example, by leaping the railing, and entering the grounds belonging to
Wagner’s abode.

The sbirri, who were six in
number, including their officer, divided themselves into two parties, and
proceeded to search the gardens.

Suddenly a loud cry of horror
burst from one of the sections; and when the other hastened to the spot, the
sbirri composing it found their comrades in the act of raising the corpse of
Agnes.

“She is quite dead,” said the
lieutenant, placing his hand upon her heart. “And yet the crime cannot have
been committed many minutes, as the corpse is scarcely cold, and the blood
still oozes forth.”

“What a lovely creature she must
have been,” exclaimed one of the sbirri.

“Cease your profane remarks, my
man,” cried the lieutenant. “This must be examined into directly. Does any one
know who dwells in that mansion?”

“Signor Wagner, a wealthy
German,” was the reply given by a sbirro.

“Then come with me, my man,” said
the lieutenant; “and let us lose no time in searching his house. One of you
must remain by the corpse—and the rest may continue the search after the
bandit, Stephano.”

Having issued these orders, the
lieutenant, followed by the sbirro whom he had chosen to accompany him,
hastened to the mansion.

The gate was opened by an old
porter, who stared in astonishment when he beheld the functionaries of justice
visiting that peaceful dwelling. But the lieutenant ordered him to close and
lock the gate; and having secured the key, the officer said, “We must search
this house; a crime has been committed close at hand.”

“A crime!” ejaculated the porter;
“then the culprit is not
 
 here—for
there is not a soul beneath this roof who would perpetrate a misdeed.”

“Cease your prating, old man,”
said the lieutenant, sternly. “We have a duty to perform—see that we be not
molested in executing it.”

“But what is the crime, signor,
of which——”

“Nay—that you shall know anon,”
interrupted the lieutenant. “In the name of his serene highness, the duke, I
command you in the first place to lead me and my followers to the presence of
your master.”

The old man hastened to obey this
mandate, and he conducted the sbirri into the chamber where Wagner, having
thrown off his garments, was partaking of that rest which he so much needed.

At the sound of heavy feet and
the clanking of martial weapons, Fernand started from the slumber into which he
had fallen only a few minutes previously.

“What means this insolent
intrusion?” he exclaimed, his cheeks flushing with anger at the presence of the
police.

“Pardon us, signor,” said the lieutenant,
in a respectful tone: “but a dreadful crime has been committed close by—indeed
within the inclosure of your own grounds——”

“A dreadful crime!” ejaculated
Wagner.

“Yes, signor; a crime——”

The officer was interrupted by an
ejaculation of surprise which burst from the lips of his attendant sbirro; and,
turning hastily round, he beheld his follower intently scrutinizing the attire
which Fernand had ere now thrown off.

“Ah! blood-stains!” cried the
lieutenant, whose attention was directed toward those marks by the finger of
his man. “Then is the guilty one speedily discovered! Signor!” he added,
turning once more toward Wagner, “are those your garments?”

An expression of indescribable
horror convulsed the countenance of Fernand; for the question of the officer
naturally reminded him of his dreadful fate—the fate of a Wehr-Wolf—although,
we should observe, he never remembered, when restored to the form of a man,
what he might have done during the long hours that he wore the shape of a
ferocious monster.

Still, as he knew that his
garments had been soiled, torn and blood-stained in the course of the preceding
night, it was no wonder that he shuddered and became convulsed with mental
agony when his terrible doom was so forcibly called to his mind.

His emotions were naturally
considered to be corroborative evidence of guilt: and the lieutenant laying his
hand upon Wagner’s shoulder, said in a stern, solemn manner, “In the name of
his highness our prince, I arrest you for the crime of murder!”

“Murder!” repeated Fernand,
dashing away the officer’s arm; “you dare not accuse me of such a deed!”

“I accuse you of murder, signor,”
exclaimed the lieutenant. “Within a hundred paces of your dwelling a young
lady——”

 “A young lady!” cried
Wagner, thinking of Agnes, whom he had left in the garden.

“Yes, signor, a young lady has
been most barbarously murdered!” added the officer in an impressive tone.

“Agnes! Agnes!” almost screamed
the unhappy man, as this dreadful announcement fell upon his ears. “Oh! is it
possible that thou art no more, my poor Agnes!”

He covered his face with his
hands and wept bitterly.

The lieutenant made a sign to his
follower, who instantly quitted the room.

“There must be some mistake in
this, signor,” said the old porter, approaching the lieutenant and speaking in
a voice tremulous with emotion. “The master whom I serve, and whom you accuse,
is incapable of the deed imputed to him.”

“Yes. God knows how truly you
speak!” ejaculated Wagner, raising his head. “That girl—oh! sooner than have
harmed one single hair of her head—— But how know you that it is Agnes who is
murdered?” he cried abruptly, turning toward the lieutenant.

“It was you who said it, signor,”
calmly replied the officer, as he fixed his dark eyes keenly upon Fernand.

“Oh! it was a surmise—a
conjecture—because I parted with Agnes a short time ago in the garden,”
exclaimed Wagner, speaking in hurried and broken sentences.

“Behold the victim!” said the
lieutenant, who had approached the window, from which he was looking.

Wagner sprung from his couch, and
glanced forth into the garden beneath.

The sbirri were advancing along
the gravel pathway, bearing amongst them the corpse of Agnes upon whose pallid
countenance the morning sunbeams were dancing, as if in mockery even at death.

“Holy Virgin! it is indeed
Agnes!” cried Wagner, in a tone of the most profound heart-rending anguish, and
he fell back senseless in the arms of the lieutenant.

An hour afterward, Fernand Wagner
was the inmate of a dungeon beneath the palace inhabited by the Duke of
Florence.