Venetian Marco Polo himself, wide-eyed and eager, toiling across burning wastes to the Great Khan of far-off Cathay, was not more imbued with the very spirit of adventure than were St. Hilary and I that April afternoon, as we set forth on our little voyage of discovery in a prosaic gondola.
We had lunched at the Grundewald. We rose with a certain deliberation, and walked toward the Molo. The band was thundering out a Strauss waltz. The Piazza was filled with its usual laughing, chattering crowd, eating and drinking at the hundreds of round little tables that overflowed a quarter of the square.
I could not help thinking what a sensation I should cause if the great throng was suddenly to be stilled, while from the balcony up there by the four bronze horses I cried aloud for all the square to hear that we two adventurers of the twentieth century were about to lay bare one of the mysteries of Venice-that we were to bring forth to the light of day a marvelous treasure 201that had been hid for nearly half a thousand years. How they would howl me into a shamed silence with their jeers and laughter! And supposing that I could tell them the very hiding-place, would one of all those hundreds, even the poorest, take the trouble to go and see? Would the hunchbacked bootblack in the Arcade there, gnarled and twisted with the cold of winter and the heat of summer? Would the Jewish shopkeepers, the antiquarian in the library, the tourists, who had come three thousand miles to feast their eyes on wonders? Not the most visionary would stir in his seat. Only St. Hilary and I, it appeared, in the whole world were absolute fools this afternoon.
“E dove?” demanded the gondolier, after we had taken our seats.
“Canalazzo,” I cried, “e presto, molto, molto presto.”
“Si, si, signore,” he cried with enthusiasm, scenting a generous tip.
The sun, just dipping behind the dome of the Salute, blazed fiercely, but the awning of our gondola was thrown back. Swiftly we swept down the sun-kissed stream, cleaving the lake of gold. The great palaces on either side, ablaze with riotous color, seemed as unreal as a painted picture. What had we to do with this mysterious 202Venice, this enchantress of the seas, holding herself aloof in melancholy disdain? Like curious savages, we were to prowl in her very holy of holies. We were to despoil her of her last glorious treasure, that she had guarded so jealously these hundreds of years.
The fantasy burst as a bubble in thin air. Behind us raced a boatful of trippers, the two oarsmen exerting every effort to urge on their craft to the railway station. There were the English père de famille; the comfortable mamma with a chick on either side. And about them were piled high bandboxes and shawls, portmanteaus and carryalls. It was the twentieth century after all. It was quite fitting that we should be seeking to reap where we had not sown.
We passed the Grand Hotel. Mrs. Gordon, Jacqueline, and the duke were seated on the balcony. I raised my hat mechanically. The duke returned the greeting with a flourish. Mrs. Gordon was suddenly interested in the customs-house opposite. Jacqueline smiled, but her greeting would have been as cordial to the concierge of her hotel. My face burned. I wished to tell St. Hilary to continue the search without me, and yet I hesitated. Even now, one nod to the gondolier and I could be landed at the steps; but I 203hesitated, and in five seconds we had passed. Before I had wholly recovered my presence of mind we were at the Rio di Bocca.
Our gondolier uttered his weird cry of warning. The gondola turned the corner sharply. We were in cool depths. The smell of damp mortar, that indefinable moist smell of the canaletti of Venice smote our nostrils. We skirted an old wall, bulging outward with decrepitude; a narrow quay, bathed in sunlight; the barred windows of a palace, blackness and gloom within. A barge of bricks was poled slowly past us, then a funeral catafalque. A hotel omnibus just escaped collision. I saw it all, but I saw it all unheeding. Three years of selfish ease and irresponsibility had left me incapable of quick decision at this critical moment. And now another opportunity to become reconciled to Jacqueline had passed. I had raised one more barrier between us.
St. Hilary shouted sharply to the gondolier. We came to a sudden stop.
We were at the sixtieth palace, and its fa?ade was as bare as the sheet of an unsigned hotel register.
“So again we have come on a fool’s errand,” he groaned.
The gondolier leaned forward and touched my 204sleeve. He had observed our perplexity. He pointed to a palace we had just passed.
“Ecco, Signori, the House of the Angel! It is not this one. It is the third back.”
“The third back?” I repeated mechanically. I let my glance follow his outstretched finger. With a twist of the oar he had turned the gondola again toward the Grand Canal.
“Behold, Signore, the House of the Angel. Up there, in the niche over the door.”
I raised my eyes dully. I had no idea what the man was talking about. The palace at whose steps we had halted was a magnificent structure of the fourteenth century, so beautiful that in any other city than Venice it would have been worth a pilgrimage to see. Over the doorway was a triangular niche, a kind of shrine. A half figure of an angel was carved in the niche, and a kneeling child looked quaintly up into the angel’s face. The gondolier pointed to the shrine reverently.
“The angel is to drive away the evil spirits, Signore. The evil spirit of a pig once dwelt in this beautiful palace. I assure the Signore that I am telling him the truth, though there are many hundreds of years since the evil soul of the pig was conjured away by the angel and the little child. The house is now sweet and clean of all 205evil, and is called the House of the Angel. But look, Signore, you can see the unclean pigs that were carved in the wall by the wicked builder. Before they were broken, the house was called the House of the Pigs.”
We looked upward.
The house had a frieze made of a capriciously carved array of pigs. The posture of each two of the creatures was the same: the one recumbent, the other erect. The heads and the feet and most of the bodies had been stricken off.
“It is very simple,” cried St. Hilary exultingly. “Our husks of corn have simply become the bodies of pigs. We have found the second landmark.”
He held the photograph of the background of the second hour before me. That background, it will be remembered, was a hanging, and on this hanging a decorative scheme that we had supposed to be husks of corn.
I forgot my folly in passing Jacqueline, and her cold greeting. Here was proof indisputable that we were really on the track of the casket at last.
“But why,” queried St. Hilary, knitting his forehead in perplexity, “should it be the fifty-seventh palace, and not the sixtieth?”
I opened the Bible, and again read the story. 206I saw our mistake immediately. In our haste to test this new theory of mine we had not read the narrative with sufficient care.
“There is another verse that we have omitted to read. It follows immediately after.” I read it aloud:
And within three days they could not declare the riddle.
“You observe the expression ‘within.’ That is to say, we were not to look for the sixtieth palace, but for the fifty-seventh, or the third within sixty.”
“Ah, that is quite clear,” cried St. Hilary with a sigh of relief. “And now for the next landmark. Read your passage of the second hour again.”
And there went forth a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, whose height was six cubits and a span.
“Six cubits and a span,” he mused. “What the deuce are the six cubits and a span?”
“Let us look around.” I motioned to the gondolier to rest on his oars.
We drifted slowly past the House of the Angel. The next house was a warehouse-an ugly four-story building, set some five paces back. The upper stories projected over the lowest story, and were supported by pillars.
207“There are six of those pillars, and there is a door. Can that be your cubits and a span?”
I shook my head. “Those pillars are of wood. This warehouse could not have been built when the goldsmith made his casket.”
“True; and it would be a senseless proceeding to lead us past the fifty-seventh palace, only to land us at the fifty-eighth.”
“But look, St. Hilary, we have been so close to the forest that we have failed to see the trees. Do you observe those circular windows just over our heads? There are just six of them. As for the span, isn’t a span half a cubit? The top of that squat door let into the wall there is semi-circular in shape; the semi-circle, the exact counterpart of the upper part of the windows. Nothing could be more clear.”
“My only fear is that it is too clear to be true,” he said anxiously.
“We shall soon determine that.”
I stood upright on the seat of the gondola, and, reaching forward, pulled a rusty bell that hung beside the low door. Our gondola, at a sign from me, had been rowed up stream once more.
In response to my vigorous summons a servant appeared at the main door of the House of the Angel.
208“What may the Signori desire?” he inquired.
“We are architects,” lied St. Hilary glibly. “We are very desirous to see your garden. We understand that it is a very curious old garden.”
The servant in the shabby livery shook his head.
“The Signori Inglesi are mistaken,” he answered politely. “The interesting garden belongs to the House of the Camel just behind this palazzina. Our garden has only artichokes and asparagus and beans and things.”
“The House of the Camel!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
St. Hilary pinched my arm for silence. “But there is a passage through your garden that leads to the garden of the other house, is there not?”
He jingled insinuatingly some loose coins in his pocket.
“Ah, yes, Signore, that is true. A long, long time ago, a great nobleman, dwelt in this house, and his daughter lived in the house behind. He had a gate made in the wall that divides the two gardens. The gate is still there.”
“Excellent! And you will lead us into the garden of the House of the Camel by that gate?”
Without further parley, St. Hilary leaped lightly ashore. I followed his example, and tossed our fare to the gondolier.
209“Thoughtful of you to send off that chap. We can’t be too careful,” remarked St. Hilary as we followed the servant in the shabby livery into the hall.
This hall, as in all Venetian palaces, ran through the house from front to rear. At its end was a glass door. The door unlocked, we were in the garden. A path turned to the right, joining a broad walk fringed with a well-trimmed hedge of box. This walk led straight to the gate-our gate of the third hour. There was no need to refer to the photograph. It was unmistakable.
“The Signori are of course expected?” asked the servant hesitatingly, as he unlocked this gate.
“Naturally,” replied St. Hilary, dropping a piece of silver in his palm.
The gate was locked behind us.
“How are we to find our way out?” I demanded.
St. Hilary was staring about him as one who knows his ground.
“My dear Hume,” he grinned, “I know my way out perfectly. Allow me to point out to you the Well of the Pomegranates and the Loops, and immediately over the doorway there the Sign of the Blind Camel. We are at the landmark of the fourth hour.”
“And the ten figures on the disks of the third 210hour are represented by these busts built in the wall-five in either wall. We are getting on. But why, I wonder, did da Sestos lead us to this landmark by the way of the House of the Angel? He might have brought us here directly by the Campo San Salvatore.”
“Because,” commented St. Hilary, “the way by land would have necessitated a dozen directions. By water we have come without undue perplexity in three. But here, I am afraid, our voyage of discovery must end for to-night. We shall have to puzzle out the fifth hour before we can go farther.”
I had opened the Bible that I had brought with me from the gondola, and, supported by the curb of the well, I rested it on my knee, turning to the Book of Genesis. I read the verse of the fourth hour:
And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking at the well, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels’ weight of gold.
“This is obscure enough,” I said ruefully. “This jargon of a golden earring and of half a shekel weight and two bracelets of ten shekels’ weight will take some time to reason out, especially as we have no idea what to look for.”
“And I think.” St. Hilary remarked, “we are 211to be interrupted. Here comes one of the priests of the seminary to see what business we have in his garden.”
“Gentlemen,” asked the padre politely, as we bowed with an assurance that belied my feelings at least, “you are looking for some one? I saw you admitted a moment ago by the gate yonder.”
“Yes,” boldly lied St. Hilary once more. “We were about to ring your bell. We went to the House of the Angel by mistake. We are architects, and we have heard that you have a wonderful old dial. We are making a study of the curious dials of Venice. Would you show us yours?”
St. Hilary’s question was not so idle as might appear. He was ignoring the existence of the fifth landmark, and was asking for the sixth landmark, which we had identified in this way. The Venetian scene of the sixth hour, it will be remembered, was that of the Doge and the poet Petrarch seated in the balcony of San Marco, overlooking the Piazza, and watching the festivities below, symbolized by the dancing automaton figure, that advanced ten steps to the front and ten to the rear. The parallel story in the Bible we had found by a rather roundabout process. Some days before I had accidentally made the discovery that the face of the 212Doge bore a remarkable resemblance to the prophet Isaiah as depicted in one of the mosaics of San Marco. Naturally, then, when we hunted up the Biblical stories of the hour, after my return from church, we looked for a story in which the prophet Isaiah figured as one of the characters. The concordance at the back of my Oxford Bible referred us to the story of the Jewish King Hezekiah, who, sick unto death, went to the prophet Isaiah for a sign that he should recover his strength. And this was the verse:
And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign? And Isaiah said, Shall the shadow of the dial go back ten degrees or shall the shadow go forward?
The little automaton figure advancing and retreating ten steps symbolized plainly the going forward and backward of the shadow. This was significant in itself, and might have made us tolerably sure that a dial was to be the landmark. But when, in the light of this story, we looked carefully at the railing of the balcony as photographed in our snap-shot, we noticed at once that the ironwork of the railing was of intertwined circles, intersected by diameters drawn through each of their centers. The circles, then, stood for the dial; the diameter, for the needle of the 213dial. We might be reasonably certain that our search would be narrowed to more and more defined limits. Even without the landmark of the fifth hour, by which we should be able to discover the locality of the dial for ourselves (provided always that we could interpret the numbers aright), it was not an extravagant hope of St. Hilary’s that the padre might direct us to the landmark of the sixth hour. I waited breathlessly for his answer. Let the gods be propitious; let fortune smile!
The gaunt but handsome face of the young priest was lighted up with a charming smile.
“But it will be an honor,” he said, “to show our curious dial to the American gentlemen.”
“English, pardon me,” corrected St. Hilary readily, and he pinched my arm. “We leave Venice for London in an hour or so. This is the last and most curious dial we expect to see.”
What a polished and delightful liar the dealer in antiquities was! But a cautious one withal. For aught we knew, we might be prowling about these premises with a jimmy and dark lantern before many more moons, and it might be convenient to prove an alibi.
I had expected the priest to lead us to an obscure corner of the garden. To my surprise and disappointment he took us directly to the 214house. Of what use could a dial be under a roof? The good fathers of the seminary had taken it from the garden, in all likelihood, and placed it within doors as an interesting curiosity for their pupils to gape at.
“Perhaps you know, gentlemen,” said the priest, as he led the way up a broad and dreary stairway, devoid of ornament, but scrupulously clean, “that this was once the house of the Venetian astrologer, Jacopo Bembo. Here, some two hundred years ago, came the flower of the Venetian aristocracy. They came to consult him-one for a love philter; another for a talisman against the plague; another, perhaps, for a deadly potion to still the beating of a rival’s heart. Some strange and dark scenes, I suspect, have taken place in the laboratory of Messer Bembo. And this is it.”
We had ascended to the third story. He threw open the door of a large room. There were some maps on the wall, desks, and chairs. It was evidently used now as a school-room.
“But the dial?” I cried impatiently.
“Oh, the dial is on the roof. Have you ever heard of a dial being in so strange a place before?”
“It is precisely that,” I cried joyously, “that makes it so unique in interest for us.”
215“And this dial on the roof will make our collection of curious dials quite complete,” added St. Hilary gravely.
We walked a few steps down the echoing landing. The worthy padre opened a door. A narrow wooden stairway led to the roof.
“If you will pardon me, I will precede you, gentlemen. There is a trapdoor at the top.”
“And did the great astrologer Bembo have to climb out of that hole whenever he wished to consult the hour of day?” I asked jocosely.
“You will see,” answered the priest smiling.
When first we stepped out on the roof, the glitter of the fierce sun on the leads blinded us. We looked in vain for the dial. The priest walked to the parapet where a stone bench stood and pointed to a large circle cut deep in the leads at the foot of the bench.
“Ecco, Signori, your curious dial, and the Signs of the Zodiac also. The needle of the dial is not the truly original one. That was broken long ago. But the one we have replaced it with is precisely similar to the antique.”
St. Hilary and I sank on our knees to observe it the more closely and to whisper to each other without the good father overhearing us. The dealer traced a line tremblingly with his forefinger.
216“Here,” he whispered, “is where the shadow falls at twelve o’clock. Ten degrees before that, it must point in this direction.”
He squinted along the imaginary line. It led him over the parapet, and in either direction it directed us to nothing more definite than the blue sky.
“But at ten degrees after twelve,” I whispered hoarsely, “it points with absolute directness to that square tower, the tower of Noah and his dove, depend upon it. We have found the seventh landmark.”
We stood upright and brushed the dust from our knees. St. Hilary produced a note-book, and began to scribble notes and to sketch the dial with every show of professional interest.
“Yes, it is a great curiosity, this dial,” purred the priest with satisfaction. “Here, in the cool of summer nights, when the sirocco has been blowing all day, I often come to sit and ponder the issues of life and death, as, no doubt, the old astrologer did before me.”
“You have a splendid view,” I remarked carelessly. “What is that square tower over there? It appears to be the tower of a palace.”
“Yes, signore, it is the tower of the Palazzo C?sarini. If you are architects, you ought to see that palace. It is full of interest.”
217“The C?sarini Palace, you said, I think?” inquired St. Hilary, still scribbling.
“Exactly, and it is known popularly as the Palazzo degli Scrigni.”
“The Palace of the Iron Safes!” I cried, startled.
“The signori Inglesi must understand that, very long ago, when the house of the C?sarini was the most powerful in Venice, as it still is one of the richest, the Prince C?sarini had two great iron safes built in the walls of his cellars to keep his treasure in. These safes were contrived by a certain goldsmith called da Sestos. Yes, the palace is worth seeing. But do not attempt to see it until after Wednesday, because a grand bal masqué is to be given on that evening, and they are busy making great preparations.”
“Ah, yes, we must have a look at it some time,” said St. Hilary carelessly. “A thousand thanks for your courtesy, father. Buona sera.”
“Buona sera, signori.”
A clock in the church of San Salvatore was striking the hour of seven as St. Hilary and I, after bidding good night to our friendly priest, crossed the Campo. Our search for that night was ended. I was free to see Jacqueline at last. Promising to call for my friend early the next morning, I hastened to the Grand Hotel.
It had been a wonderful day. After weeks of futile wandering, we were going straight to the goal. But Jacqueline? Would she forgive me for breaking my appointment, even though I was at last to bring her the casket? I had well-nigh drawn from her the gentle confession of her love. She had left the gate of Paradise ajar. She had looked at me in such a way that the very look was an invitation to enter when I should reappear. And I had failed her.
It was in vain that I tried to reassure myself. If I had not kept that sacred tryst, was it not because in failing to do so I was really serving her? When once she knew the circumstances she 219must forgive me. She had asked me to find the casket for her. She had dreaded the possibility of the duke’s finding it. Could she find fault, then, because I had taken her at her word?
But because she had asked me to find it, I should have gone to her at once to tell her that the forlorn hope had become an actual possibility. Instead of doing that, I had thought of myself first-of my own petty triumph. I had yielded to the cheap excitement of putting my theory to actual test. I had seen her in the duke’s company on the balcony of the hotel only a few hours ago. What if she had turned to him for the sympathy and confidence that I had failed to give her? Could I complain if she had done that? Only a few hours ago I had insisted upon the uselessness of the search. I had begged her to bid me relinquish it. I had told her that she had no right to rest her happiness on the shifting foundations of chance; that if she loved the duke, there was nothing more to be said; but that, if she loved me, she had no right to permit him to misconstrue her idly spoken words. Let her cut the Gordian knot by yielding herself to me.
I had said all this to her, and my actions this afternoon had belied my words. Could I explain away this apparently glaring inconsistency? I 220should find it difficult to prove to her that I was the loyal lover I had claimed to be. I hardly dared hope that she would listen and forgive.
I was prepared for reproaches, for tears. It was not unlikely, I thought, that she would even refuse to see me. But she came into the reception-room of the hotel almost immediately after my arrival, and she was smiling.
“Jacqueline!” I held her hand clasped in mine. I pleaded for forgiveness with my eyes.
She withdrew her hand gently-not with impatience, or embarrassment either, but quite naturally, with a frank smile that was altogether friendly and affectionate.
“What do you think of me, Jacqueline? That I should have failed you?” I murmured.
“I must suspend judgment until you tell me precisely why you have failed me,” she cried cheerfully.
I took heart. I plunged into my story. I did not make light of my offence. I did not exaggerate it. I told her the truth, but I spared her details. I was too eager to hear her say that she forgave me to bother now with long and elaborate explanations. I told her that I had come across unexpected clues that had led me so far unerringly toward the hiding-place of the casket. The existence of these new clues had 221occurred to me, very strangely, in church while I was waiting for her. Just how they had dawned on me, how I had traced them out, I would tell her later. For the present, it was enough that I had found them. I had not met her after the church service because I had yielded to the temptation of putting them to the test. This latter task had taken me all the afternoon. I reminded her that she had urged the great importance of haste in accomplishing this task. Every moment was valuable, if I was to anticipate the duke. Because I had taken her precisely at her word, surely she would not find fault with that? Surely her strong common-sense must help her to understand, even though I had caused her some annoyance, perhaps vexation.
This was my plea. But even as I made it I felt its weakness. The fact remained that I must have wounded her. The fact remained that love is not logic. It is a thing so fragile that, like a sensitive plant exposed to the cold blast, it withers if not guarded tenderly. It withers none the less surely because one’s carelessness may not be deliberate. And I knew that my carelessness in a way had been deliberate. My vehement protestations did not ring true.
She heard me through without speaking. At 222the end of my story she sighed, and I fancied that for the first time her cheerfulness gave way to pain.
“You forgive me?” I asked humbly.
“Yes,” she answered slowly. “If you can say quite honestly that you feel that there is nothing for me to forgive, I forgive you.”
I was silent.
“It would be unreasonable that I should blame you for doing only too well what I had asked you to do,” she said gently.
“Only too well, Jacqueline?” I repeated anxiously.
“A year ago, Dick, I was at a luncheon given by one of my friends to announce her engagement. There were twelve of us present. The talk at the table drifted to a play that most of us had seen. It was a medi?val play, the hero a knight, who had had a task given him-a difficult, seemingly an impossible task, by the woman whom he professed to love. Some one asked what the man of the twentieth century would do if such a task were given him by the woman he loved. Would he obediently attempt it? Or would he ridicule it? It was a question of character, you see.”
The discussion seemed to me rather silly, but I nodded gravely.
223“And some one suggested,” continued Jacqueline dreamily, “that it would be interesting for one to apply this test. It would be a test of love. If the man really cared, he would undertake even the impossible.”
“So you applied this interesting test to me!” I exclaimed.
“When, some weeks ago,” she went on, “you told me that you loved me, I could not help remembering that conversation at the luncheon. You did not put yourself in the most favorable light. You confessed that you had been living only to please yourself. You acknowledged that you had no ambition, and no energy to fulfil an ambition.”
“That I had no ambition before I met you, Jacqueline,” I interrupted.
“To apply such a test to you would be childish, I thought then. But I did suggest that you should do something. In the meantime,” she added very slowly, her chin resting on her clasped hands, “Duke da Sestos came into my life. He, too, professed to love me.”
“I see. You saw in him the manly traits you found lacking in me. He was ambitious; I was not. He was bold and confident, while I was only too conscious that I had made rather a muddle of my life so far. I can imagine that 224the contrast between us was not favorable to me.”
She looked at me pleadingly.
“Do not make it too hard for me, Dick. The duke interested me, I confess it. I liked him. Perhaps I even admired him. Every day I saw something of him. He was untiring in his devotion. I began to wonder, at last, if he did not really love me.”
“Had you never been sure that I really loved you, Jacqueline?” I asked sadly.
“No; not sure,” she answered steadily. “How could I be? You neglected me. You went to Rome without excuse. You did not even write to me. And then the duke asked me to be his wife, and this in spite of every discouragement I could throw in his path. For if I admired him, I was careful not to show him that.”
She drew herself up proudly, and looked at me with a calm dignity.
“You know how, quite involuntarily, I asked him to do what seemed an impossible thing. If he would bring me the casket that belonged to the chest he had given to me, I would listen to his declaration of love, and not until then. Too late I realized that he had taken my words to be a test of his devotion. I was terrified at the encouragement I had unconsciously given him. 225I had not dreamed that he would take the challenge seriously. And yet I wondered at his earnestness. Any woman would be touched at such faith and courage. Here actually was a man who dared to undertake the impossible! Then I thought of you.”
“Would I do as much? Is that what you mean?”
“I asked myself naturally that. And it seemed fair-I wished you to know what I had said to the duke. I wished you to, because--”
“You wished to apply a similar test to me,” I prompted.
“And so,” continued Jacqueline, very pale, “I threw the whole issue into the hands of fate. I sent for you. I told you that you must also try to find this casket for me. And how did you receive this request? So lightly that the last words you said were these: ‘Perhaps I shall find time to write the legend of the clock as well as to find the casket.’ You failed to realize that the finding of this casket was a real crisis in my life and in yours. You wrote twice, and only the shortest and most unsatisfactory of notes. Not unsatisfactory because you were unsuccessful, but because you were pursuing the search in so negligent a manner. And when, at last, I saw you this morning, you met me with reproaches. 226You were weary of the search. It was actually degrading you. It was leading you from me.”
She paused, and looked at me imploringly. I was silent.
“You urged me to release you from it. But you wished me to understand that it was only reasonable to do so. I was willing to listen. I wished to understand that so much myself. I was ready to believe it-oh, so glad to believe it. I waited for you eagerly. You failed to wait for me. What was I to think? I do not reproach you for doing too well what I had asked you to do. But, Dick, if you could have done it in a different manner!”
“In a different manner?” I repeated obstinately, though I understood only too well what she meant. “What does the manner signify, so long as the thing is being done, and being done successfully?”
“It signifies to me, Dick,” she insisted gently. “Right or wrong, I have the right to put on the facts just the interpretation that seems to me fair.” She turned to me with sudden passion. “Supposing I was foolish, even heartless, in imposing this test, reckless and foolish in putting my happiness in the hands of fate, yet if it ennobled the one, and degraded, by his own confession, 227the other, why should I not let the results plead for themselves? Why should I not abide by the decision of fate? You have driven me, you see, in spite of myself, to this question.”
“Oh, if it has ennobled the duke!” I could not help saying.
“Yes, ennobled,” she answered defiantly, “if constant love is ennobling. Don’t, please, sneer at that. I fought against him. I could not help feeling a prejudice against him, perhaps because he was a foreigner. If he interested me, it was in spite of myself. He had every barrier to break down. And, I repeat, we women are not indifferent to a man who sets to work patiently and courageously to break down these barriers-or, at least, to attempt to break them down. Every day, almost every hour, I have been reminded that he cared for me. A hundred little thoughtfulnesses and kindnesses that could not but appeal to a woman he has unceasingly shown me. While you, Dick, while you--”
There were tears in her eyes. Unconsciously she stretched out her hands to me. If I had not been blind-if I had only taken those dear hands and drawn her to me-I might have been spared hours of pain. I might have conquered then. But I was hurt, indignant, proud. She had not 228judged me fairly. I forgot that I had not given her the opportunity to do that.
“And I?” I said quietly, “I have been doing what you asked me to do, perhaps not in the most approved way, not so tactfully as Duke da Sestos has conducted his discreet search, doubtless; though how he can have been looking for the casket here in Venice, while he has found time to play the lover in Bellagio, I fail to see.”
We arose. Jacqueline looked at me indignantly.
“You are unjust,” she cried proudly, “and you are quite mistaken. For not only has Duke da Sestos found time to show me that he loves me, but this afternoon he brought to me the casket that belonged to the steel chest.”
“He has found the da Sestos casket! Impossible! It is impossible,” I stammered.
“It stands on the table there,” she said with quiet dignity.
I walked unsteadily to the table she indicated, and I saw the casket.
It was an exquisite thing, a jewel-case worthy of holding a prince’s diadem. It was about as long as my two hands interlocked, and a little broader than the palm of my hand. Two medallions were in each of the front and rear panels, and a medallion at either end. The design of 229the medallions was the loves of the gods in silver-gilt, repoussé. The cover rose to an apex, and on the apex was a nymph embraced by a satyr. The material was ebony, thickly inlaid with silver of a quaint design. I lifted the cover. There were several layers of little drawers. But I saw no sign of the springs. I saw no compartments that held the more precious of the Doge’s jewels. As I looked at it more carefully, I saw that the workmanship was not Venetian, but French. In no way did it answer to the description of the casket in the Diary of Sanudo.
I understood. The duke had despaired of finding the casket. It was so much simpler to pretend that he had found it. Jacqueline would believe that this was the casket as readily as if he had brought the real one. Even if she had any doubts, how could she prove them? He was a clever rascal, my lord duke. Unfortunately for the success of his ruse, he had not counted on my intervention, or perhaps he despised me too much to care.
Jacqueline watched me with parted lips, a slight frown of anxiety on her forehead. Her eyes seemed to plead with me. What did she wish me to say? To tell her that the duke was a liar and a cheat? Or did she wish me to say 230that this was indeed the casket? Would she be glad to hear that? Had he conquered her so surely?
“It is very beautiful,” I said indifferently.
“You are convinced?” she asked, almost timidly.
“It is worthy of any museum in Europe.”
“You think it is really the casket?” she persisted.
“I imagined that there would be gems in the da Sestos casket,” I said, smiling at her.
“You are not answering my question.”
“Will you tell me how the duke happened to find this-this pretty toy? Did he honor you with so much information?”
“He brought it to me only this afternoon. I was so-so overwhelmed-I should say, astonished-that I could say nothing. Presently, I suppose, he will tell me.”
“And now that he has brought it, Jacqueline?”
“If this is the da Sestos casket, I must keep my word.”
“Then I do assure you that it is not. Do you hear me, Jacqueline? I swear to you that this is not the da Sestos casket. I will prove to you that this Duke da Sestos is the liar and cheat that I have long suspected him to be.”
231She looked at me without speaking, but her face was suddenly transfigured. My courage came back by leaps and bounds. I felt instinctively that the day was not yet lost.
“And how will the ingenious Mr. Hume accomplish that delightful task?” demanded a cold voice. The duke walked in.
“How shall I do that, Duke da Sestos?” I repeated passionately. “I shall do that by bringing to Miss Quintard the real da Sestos casket before the week is over.”
“You are promising a great deal, my friend,” he sneered.
For the second time since we had met on the Piazza we looked steadily at each other. It was to be the last grapple now.
“Will you wait that week, Jacqueline, before you listen to Duke da Sestos?” I pleaded.
The duke made a gesture of entreaty. “Miss Quintard can not do that without showing that she doubts my word.”
Jacqueline looked slowly from me to the duke, and then again at me. She smiled-that same grave smile that had puzzled me so much the last half hour.
“I shall wait that week,” she said.
That night I could not sleep; and, indeed, I had enough to think about as I lay in my troubled bed.
Now I remembered with joy that strange smile of Jacqueline’s, a smile as vague and inscrutable as the immortal smile on the lips of the divine Gioconda, that withholds so much. My dear Jacqueline had promised that she would not pledge herself to the duke for a week. That assurance was infinitely heartening. But I had made my promise before the duke, and so it was but a foolish boast after all. If he had been villain enough to attempt to impose upon her in this way, he was quite capable of setting spies at my heels who would dog my every movement for the next eventful few days. That would make my promise more difficult of achievement. However, the words were spoken. There was nothing for it now but to bend every effort to find the casket. I must make good my word at all costs.
If the casket were actually in existence, and in Venice, I would do that, be the difficulties what they might. The foppish mantle of the 233dilettante had slipped off my willing shoulders. I was aroused at last. We should see now who was the better man-this Latin with feline, sheathed claws, or the Anglo-Saxon with bulldog grip.
When I knew that sleep was quite impossible, I put on my dressing-gown and went into the sitting-room to read. But it was impossible for me to keep my attention on the book. I threw open the heavy shutters and looked out.
The lights of Venice the mysterious glowed dimly in the distance. The newly risen moon shone on campanile, dome and spire. Here and there a gondola, a black speck in a lake of silver, drifted slowly by. I heard the plash of the oars, the fragment of a song. Then my attention was drawn to the fondamenta immediately beneath my window by the sharp, persistent bark of a dog.
A white poodle was leaping in an ecstasy of joy at its master, who was doing his utmost to quiet the beast. He cursed the dog volubly by the evil spirits of his father and grandfather and all his numerous relations and ancestors. At first this little scene only amused me, but my idle amusement gave way to an eager interest when presently I heard my name mentioned. Leaning far out, I saw that Pietro, my gondolier, 234was conversing with the dog’s master. I tried in vain to hear what they were talking about, but almost immediately the dog and his master slunk down the quay, hugging the shadow of the wall. I had not seen the fellow’s face, but something in his gait seemed familiar. I whistled to attract Pietro’s attention, and beckoned to him. Before he had entered my room I had made up my mind that I knew who this prowler was. I was convinced that it was none other than the duke’s servant, whom St. Hilary and I had seen that night the duke had paid his memorable visit to my rooms.
“Pietro,” I said, looking at him steadily, “I have had you in my service ever since you left the penitentiary a few rods down the quay. It was an affair of stabbing, I believe.”
Pietro nodded with unblushing countenance.
“Yes, monsignore, it was an affair of stabbing. But that I was innocent as a three-years-old babe, I swear to you by all the holy saints in the calendar, including the Blessed Virgin herself.”
“Pietro,” I continued, “I have been a fairly good master. You have earned many a buona lira.” I paused suggestively.
He was voluble in his gratitude. Heaven was witness that he had been faithful and honest.
235“Then will you tell me who was talking to you a few minutes ago? Will you tell me exactly what he said to you?”
Certainly he would, and with an ease born of years of careful cultivation he lied as cheerfully and fluently as St. Hilary himself.
“The man, monsignore, is the cousin of the husband of my sister. He is the concierge of the Pallazzina Baroni on the Rio Santa Barbara. Perhaps you have seen, monsignore, the wonderful poodle that is the property of the Principessa Fini, who lives in that palace. I assure you, monsignore, that the Principessa adores the poodle with the woolly coat that hangs in strings at the tail with a devotion that is as great as if the wonderful poodle were her own son. But this poodle, you must understand, is of an intelligence that is marvelous and a badness that is lamentable. He is always running away from his dear mistress. To-night he went for a ride on the steamboat-oh, he is of an intelligence that is truly remarkable, and came to our fondamenta to visit another dog, but a dog of so plebeian a birth as to be disgraceful. And so the concierge has come swearing after the wicked beast, and no doubt the monsignore heard the barking.”
It was useless to get anything out of Pietro. 236He lied because he loved to lie, and then there had been the money that had crossed his palm.
“That will do,” I said gravely.
I did not inform St. Hilary the next morning of my foolish boast to the duke. Nor did I tell him that the duke had already been bribing my servant to spy on me. Hearing that, he would, I was sure, insist upon our postponing the search for the casket until the week was over. That would not suit my plans at all. But I did tell him of the duke’s pseudo casket. He was delighted at this turn of affairs.
“So our friend the comedian has discovered a casket all by himself,” he exclaimed, rubbing his hands with joy. “His object, of course, is to gain the consent of Miss Quintard to marry him. Now that he has obtained that, he will cease to bother us, if, indeed, he has concerned himself about us at all. But I forgot,” he added hypocritically, seizing my hands. “You, my dear Hume, do not consider this good news at all.”
“If it were true that Miss Quintard were actually engaged to the duke,” I replied indifferently, “I should tell you and the casket to go to the devil. But I happen to know that she will wait a week, at least, before binding herself to him or any other.”
237“Capital, my dear Hume, capital! In a quarter of an hour I shall be dressed. A cup of coffee and a cigarette, and we will continue our search. It is early, but not too early to interview a servant mopping a doorstep.”
The Palace C?sarini, as every tourist knows, is one of the most beautiful and historic in Venice. Its distinguishing mark, however, is the square tower that stands at its rear. The campanile, as bare of ornament and as stolid as one of those towers of defence one sees at Regensburg, is no more than a case for the stairway inside. Ugly as it is, it serves to bring into more striking contrast the lightness and delicacy of the Gothic jewel-work of the fa?ade of the palace. Five arches, richly carved with foliage, support the upper stories. The loggia beneath is exquisitely proportioned. The broad marble steps, leading to the water’s edge, extend the whole width of the palace front. The pointed windows, Moorish in the profusion of their carving, are noticeable because of the quaintly grotesque beasts, with monstrous tails and protruding tongues, that are carved in niches between each window.
Our interest in the palace, however, was centered in the tower. From this tower we expected to be led to the eighth landmark. We thought 238it most unlikely that the iron safes had any significance. For no imaginable reason, surely, could the clock-maker have chosen so public a hiding-place. Indeed, the casket might not be in the C?sarini Palace at all; yet we expected to find it there. At first thought this seemed unreasonable. Why should he have hidden the gems in another house? The existence of the iron safes suggests the answer.
St. Hilary had read in the Annals of the Inquisition that the last work Giovanni had undertaken was the building of these safes. When once he had determined to steal the casket he must have thought of a hiding-place. He knew that his own house was impossible. The mechanism of these safes was intricate and delicate. They would require constant attention and repair. The clock-maker would have, therefore, frequent access to the palace, and provided that he was successful in once hiding the casket there, he could take away the stones at his leisure. Here, then, if this theory was correct, the son had hidden the casket. For as his father’s assistant he would naturally have had access to the palace.
St. Hilary and I rang the bell at the side door of the palace on the Calle Bianca Madonna. It 239was a less conspicuous entrance than that on the Grand Canal. The majordomo, summoned by us, peremptorily frowned on our modest request to be permitted to see the curious tower and the safes.
“No, signori,” he protested, swelling out a chest resplendent with gold braid, “this is no time for tourists to visit the palace.”
“Tourists!” cried St. Hilary indignantly. “Have I not told you we are distinguished architects?”
“Because,” continued the majordomo patiently, closing his eyes, as if he had not heard the interruption, “all the palace is in confusion. To-morrow night the Princess C?sarini gives the famous bal masqué. You can understand, then, that this is no time to visit our palace.”
“But we could at least see the safes. They interest us particularly.”
“The safes, signore! Pooh, pooh, they have been made into furnaces long ago.”
“But the tower-we can visit that without troubling you. We are writing a book on curious towers.”
The man shrugged his shoulders obstinately. “After to-morrow night, perhaps. I do not know. Certainly not till then. And even then 240our princess may not care to have the gentlemen come. She goes to Paris the day after, and the palace will be closed.”
This was alarming news.
“Closed!” persisted St. Hilary, and it was impossible to mistake the note of satisfaction in his voice. “Closed! And does no one stay to take care of it?”
“But certainly,” replied the servant suspiciously, “I stay and all the servants; and then, let me tell the gentlemen, unless the princess commands, no one, not even the king, has admittance.”
I thought St. Hilary’s eagerness most indiscreet, but he was in no way abashed.
“It is to be a very exclusive ball, I suppose.”
“Of an exclusiveness that will exclude all Inglesi and forrestieri,” cried the servant maliciously, and shut the door in our faces.
“Do you think your suspicions and vulgar curiosity quite apropos, St. Hilary?” I demanded vexatiously, as we turned from the door.
“Oh, thick of head and slow of understanding,” he retorted in wild good humor. “Do you think that I asked my questions without reason? I wanted to know if it were not better for us to postpone our explorations till after this precious ball. I have learned definitely that it would be 241quite useless. If Madame La Princesse goes to Paris immediately after, it is not likely that she will bother her head giving tourists or architects permission to explore her palace. As to forcing our way in afterward, you heard what the man said. For my part I prefer to enter the palace as a guest. We must resort to the jimmy and the dark-lantern as a last extremity. Certainly we must go to that ball.”
“Without an invitation, and costumes?”
“Assuredly not. And the costumes I have in my mind’s eye for you and myself will fit our figures to a marvel. You, the stolid pig, shall be resplendent as the Doge. As for me, I shall be bravely clad in doublet and hose as the captain of the guard. And behold, in that room yonder probably repose our costumes this very moment.”
St. Hilary had tossed his head to a window of a pretentious apartment on the second story.
“We are going to hire costumes from a shop?”
“What!” he cried in horror. “You have lived in Venice three years, and mistake the apartments of one of the most aristocratic families of Venice for a costumer’s shop. Fie, fie!”
“You are not going to steal the costumes and the tickets?” I cried in dismay. St. Hilary’s 242methods were always so beautifully direct and unscrupulous.
“I am not going to steal them. I am going, as it were, to squeeze the costumes off the noble backs of two gallant cavaliers I know slightly, and the tickets out of their pockets. Oh, they will gladly oblige me, those young gentlemen.”
“But why?”
“Why, my friend? Because it so happens that I hold a little note that is signed jointly in the writing of the noble youths. Now if I were to postpone the necessity of their paying those notes for a month or two, or if I removed the necessity of payment altogether, would they not be duly grateful?”
As I have said, St. Hilary’s methods were always so beautifully direct and unscrupulous.
St. Hilary and I were smiling at ourselves before the pier-glass in my bedroom. It seemed to me quite impossible that we could be recognized.
As a captain of the Inquisitorial Guard St. Hilary was inimitable. His black eyes, as bright and piercing as any swashbuckler’s, glowed through the velvet mask with a ferocity that was startling. His leanness and agility, the stiff carriage of his compact and sinewy little body, the gray goatee and mustachios, all distinctive of St. Hilary, were quite as distinctive of the part he had taken. Nothing could be more thoroughly foreign, more Italian.
He was pleased to approve of me. A magnificent robe of old Genoese velvet, bordered with ermine, the Doge’s cap, with one great stone glowing in the front, made of me a most imposing personage. The velvet mask completed my disguise. We might or might not be mistaken for the two gallant young noblemen whose costumes St. Hilary had “squeezed” from them, but at least we were not ourselves.
244And so, seated stiffly upright, not to crush our gorgeous costumes, we started late in the evening for the ball at the C?sarini Palace.
Propelled with vigorous strokes, we swept down the Grand Canal. It was impossible not to enter into the adventure with spirit and abandon. Our going to the ball was audacious enough. But the ball itself was a mere bagatelle to us. We were about to loot a palace. It is not every day that one has such big game to key one’s nerves to fighting pitch.
We glided silently and swiftly down the broad stream. Glimmering lanterns of other gondolas danced about us. Every moment we overtook and were passed by guests. Every Rio poured forth its tribute, a doge, a monk, a queen, a knight. As we neared the palace the gondolas almost touched, so dense was the throng. A compact mass, we drifted toward the blaze of light pouring from the open hall of the C?sarini Palace.
Slowly, one by one, the gondolas were deftly guided to the marble steps. St. Hilary grasped my arm. He whispered his last instructions. I was not an adept at this sort of thing.
“We must keep together as much as possible. But first, we shall have to separate. To find our way to the tower, that is the main thing. If you 245find the way clear thither, you must indicate it to me by resting your forefinger lightly on your thigh. I shall show you I have found it by resting the same finger on the hilt of my dagger. Once in the tower, we can determine our next move. The chances are that it will be open to the guests from the garden. A dark tower is an admirable retreat for a couple to make love in.”
As St. Hilary was whispering these words in my ear, my attention was distracted by the gondola floating by our side. Its oarsmen were vainly attempting to cut across our bows. Our own gondoliers were unwilling to give way. Before I could interfere, we had jammed the other gondola against the variegated red and blue posts placed before every Venetian palace. Instantly the curtains of the felsa of the neighboring gondola were drawn aside. The head of a cardinal was thrust out. Forgetting that I was in costume, I drew back to avoid being seen. The cardinal was Duke da Sestos. He had doffed his mask while he shouted to our men to make way. Awed by the ducal coronet on his gondola, our oarsmen paused. The other shot forward and drew up at the steps of the palace. Alighting there, the duke handed out two ladies. I recognized them as Mrs. Gordon 246and Jacqueline, in spite of their masks and disguise.
In our turn we paused at the water’s edge. Servants dressed in the costume of the gondoliers of the fifteenth century stood in a row to receive us. Two of them steadied the gondola; another placed his little platform of green baize; the fourth offered a deferential arm. I gathered my robe about me, and we stepped from the platform to the crimson carpet. Surrendering our tickets to our friend the majordomo, who bowed to us much more courteously than he had done the day before, we advanced slowly down the hall, glowing with a thousand candles. I noticed with satisfaction that the doors of glass leading into the garden were wide open. We should have no difficulty in entering the tower, then, unless its gates were locked. The full moon fell with a soft radiance on the playing fountain, the statues, and the bare whiteness of Italian seats. But we dared not enter the garden.
With a Mephistopheles crowding me close on one side and St. Hilary on the other, the train of a Lucretia Borgia dragging in front, and the lance of a Don Quixote poking me in the back, I ascended a stairway, impressively noble in its 247proportions. Along its entire length at intervals were placed busts of some great ancestor of the House of C?sarini. They stood in niches of the wall and on the balustrade of each turn of the stairway.
The grand staircase ended in a great square hall. A full-length portrait of Prince C?sarini on horseback looked down on us. A row of servants stood at the two open folding-doors leading into the sala. On either side of the sala were the usual reception-rooms and card-rooms.
This sala of the C?sarini Palace, one of the most impressive in Venice, both in size and plan, is a square apartment, one side facing the Grand Canal, the other, a little side canal. Quite two-thirds of the room is raised above the rest of the floor, and is ascended by three marble steps. The effect on entering was indescribably brilliant. Dancing had already commenced on this immense dais. Every moment a couple descended and ascended the marble steps. The air was heavy with perfume. The strange costumes were reflected in a score of mirrors sunk in the walls at intervals between the tapestries. Through the velvet masks gleamed dark and languorous eyes that beckoned and challenged seductively. Already here and there a nymph 248fled with light laughter; a satyr pursued with eager eyes. One felt that license would go far before these masks were removed at supper.
I missed St. Hilary almost immediately. Jacqueline and the duke were dancing. I watched them gloomily. On what mad errand were St. Hilary and I bent to-night? We had forced ourselves here by browbeating two weak young fools, who were no doubt quite ready to turn and rend us. If we were exposed! And before Jacqueline! We were absolutely no more respectable than two thieves whose eyes are fixed greedily on the silver spoons.
My arm was jogged. St. Hilary stood beside me. His eyes danced. His forefinger rested lightly on the hilt of his dagger. I strolled after him. He led the way directly to one of the camerini. He paused before a Titian. I stared at a Giorgione. He sauntered on. I kept him just in sight. We passed through half a dozen of the square little rooms. We entered the last of them, where several men were gathered about a punch-bowl. St. Hilary dropped into a chair in the corner. I occupied the chair next to him. Presently, when a burst of loud laughter came from the men at the punch-bowl, he leaned forward and picked up an imaginary pin. “I know where the casket is.”
249I started violently.
“I have traced it from the tower.”
“You have traced it from the tower!” I repeated incredulously.
“To this room,” he whispered. “You remember the scene of the seventh hour?”
“And in the seven and twentieth day of the month was the earth dried,” I murmured.
“Precisely. The twenty-seven steps from the summit of the tower bring one to a door that opens on a passage. The other door to that passage is just to the right of your chair.”
“And how do you know that?” I demanded, staring at it.
“A lady fainted a few minutes ago. She was carried through that door to the landing for air. While the door was open I made good use of my opportunity, and I have taken the precaution to put the key of the door opening on to the tower into my pocket.”
I looked about me eagerly for the eighth landmark. The four walls were not suggestive.
“The painted ceiling,” prompted St. Hilary.
I looked upward. The decoration of the ceiling represented a king rising from his throne in the act of greeting a woman who made obeisance before him. I recognized the figures as those of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. 250The throne had six steps. At the base of the steps crouched two lions.
“And now that we have found the eighth landmark?” I asked quietly.
“The numbers are 6 and 2,” he whispered. Then aloud, in Italian, “Shall we go into the ball-room?”
I took St. Hilary’s arm. We passed through a succession of reception-rooms, and as we entered each room I felt the familiar and significant pressure. Passing through six of these rooms, we were in the sala again.
The decorous dancing of an hour ago had given way to a rout, a pageant, a scene of childish abandon and folly. The younger of the aristocracy of Venice had each assumed some classic character. Arm in arm, a wild procession of shepherds crowned with chaplets, bacchantes, and goddesses romped across the stage. There was Jason with his golden fleece, Thetis with her sea-nymphs, Orpheus with a pair of loving-birds on his wrist.
Round and round the great ball-room, up and down the marble steps, swept the procession. Presently it stopped abruptly. With a wild shout, they swept down on the laughing spectators; each Jack chose an incongruous Jill. 251Apollo made captive Catherine di Medici; Pomona, Falstaff; Hebe, Mephistopheles.
Too late, St. Hilary and I turned to flee. A chain of flowers deftly tossed by white arms made us prisoners, St. Hilary to Diana, myself to a Mermaid. The grotesque mob again formed in procession. To the flourish of trumpets and the beating of drums, after encircling the ball-room once more, they proceeded to the supper-room. There, of course, each was expected to unmask.
It was impossible to retreat. Every step brought us nearer to exposure and disgrace. This knowledge, disagreeable enough in itself, was made doubly embarrassing when my fair jailer whispered coyly in my ear that not all the disguise in the world could deceive her. It was evident, of course, that she had taken me for the man whose costume I wore, and that tender passages had passed between the two before now. I muttered some incoherent reply. I followed miserably after St. Hilary and his inamorata.
But even at the eleventh hour came a reprieve. St. Hilary had guided his fair unknown past the supper-room, down the stairway. I followed his example. At the foot of the stairway we turned 252to the right, and so made our way into the moonlight of the garden. The shades of Elysium are not more grateful to perturbed spirits than was to us the dark bower overgrown with yellow jessamine and honeysuckle. But the girl at my side had become suspicious. I had spoken no word. She drew back in alarm. At that instant St. Hilary’s Diana discovered her mistake. There was an hysterical cry from each of the girls. Together they fled down the path to the palace, while St. Hilary followed them with mocking laughter. Then we plunged into the arbor. We were saved.
A moment we listened. St. Hilary lighted a cigarette.
“Idiot,” he chuckled, “to intrude on a doting couple. There might have been kisses, who knows?”
“But why did she not recognize you sooner?”
“Because I happen to have a figure that is not unlike her swain’s, I suppose. As to my voice, have I not heard many times the squeak of the noble Conti, and am I not a mimic on occasions?”
“But surely I do not resemble the other noble Conti?”
“In that bulging robe, with that beard and mask, you might be equally an angel of light or the very devil himself. I am glad you had wit enough not to speak.”
“And now?” I asked impatiently.
“After we have slipped the bolt of that little gate in the garden wall over there, we will make our way up the tower and hide until the guests have gone. We dare not trust ourselves in the 254palace again after our escapade. That gate opens on the side street. We shall be glad to avail ourselves of it later.”
We were about to leave the arbor when a Punchinello strolled down the garden path, a poodle at his heels. He was humming a French song, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. He passed by a pergola of grapevines without once turning in our direction. Recognizing the dog, I guessed the identity of the clown. It was the man who had been tampering with Pietro’s honesty a night or two before. His presence at the palace was alarming, but I said no word to St. Hilary of my fears. Spies or no spies, I was going to find that casket to-night!
When the garden was again deserted I drew the bolts of the gate, then followed St. Hilary up the steps of the tower. All the guests were at supper, and we met no one.
At the summit of the tower the sides were wide open to the sky. A low parapet ran around the sides. The roof rose to an apex some ten or twelve feet above. Two broad timbers, just out of reach, stretched across the roof. Rusty rings were still embedded in them. In former days this had been a bell-tower. I pointed out the timbers to St. Hilary.
“There is our hiding-place if any one comes. 255Could you reach those beams if I gave you a back?”
He did not answer. He was looking down the dark stairway. He rose and leaped on the parapet.
“It is time to make the attempt. People are coming up the stairs.”
In five seconds we were lying side by side.
“Whatever happens, you must not betray yourself. If you do, remember, you betray me, and you promised to stand by me, no matter what happened.”
I nodded; then, peering over, I saw my mask lying on the bench where I had thrown it down. I pointed it out to St. Hilary.
“Shall I risk jumping down for it?”
“No, no. There is no logical clue between a mask on a bench and two gentlemen playing eavesdroppers a few feet above.”
There was a rustle of silk; a faint sigh of a woman catching her breath; then a ripple of light laughter.
“We are not the first, duke, to enjoy this wonderful view,” cried a clear voice.
I leaned recklessly over. Jacqueline was holding my mask toward Duke da Sestos. And they were alone.
I had just given my promise to St. Hilary, 256but I had not reckoned on this. To leap down now would mean that I must betray him; to remain, that I must listen. I was in an agony of indecision. Again I hesitated, and again I was to pay a bitter penalty.
“Oh, it is worth the climb,” cried Jacqueline enthusiastically. “That blaze of lights is the Piazza San Marco, of course. And the long line to the north?”
“Are the lights of the Riva,” answered the moody voice of the duke.
His tone frightened me. I felt that he was regarding her with burning glances. Jacqueline must have noticed it had she not been enraptured with the fairy scene before her.
“The little splashes of light here and there are the campos, of course. But the Grand Canal! I never dreamed of anything so wonderful. Look, it has just one broad band of moonlight across its gloom. How fearfully tragic it must look on a cloudy night! But now, it is beautiful. And the tiny flickers of dancing light from the lanterns on the gondolas make the effect magical. Is it any wonder that, after all, one is a slave to the beauty of this Venice? Perhaps,” she added dreamily, “one might have more ignoble dreams and ambitions than to live always in the midst of this beauty. I believe 257there is nothing on earth so beautiful as this scene.”
“There is yourself,” a hoarse voice broke in on her revery. “There is yourself, and to-night you are more beautiful and exquisite than the very citadels of Paradise.”
I trembled. It was to come, then, this declaration of love; and I must listen. It was now too late to descend. I could only pray that they would soon go. To my joy, this time Jacqueline did recognize the danger of her lingering.
“And below, what a mass of gondolas! How little did I think that I should ever go to a ball in a gondola! I can not thank you enough for bringing me here. But my aunt is waiting at the next landing. She will be wondering.”
“No,” broke in the duke’s hoarse voice, “she will not.”
“And why not, please?” demanded Jacqueline.
“I have told Mrs. Gordon that I must see you alone. You have avoided me all the evening-all the day-ever since Mr. Hume insulted me by denying that I had found the casket. And now that I have my opportunity it shall not escape me.”
“If my aunt has given you permission to detain me here against my will, she has gone beyond 258her right. That she is not waiting for me makes it still more necessary to descend.”
“You must not go. You will not be so cruel. You shall not go. You shall not go, by heaven until you have told mo why you refuse to listen to me!”
“Do you think that my regard for you will grow stronger because you detain me here against my will?” Jacqueline asked indignantly.
“My glorious one, you are beautiful when you are angry,” he cried passionately. “I do not forget that you are only a nun for the hour. Beneath those funereal robes beats a heart of passion and fire like mine. Like mine, do you hear? It is time you were wooed and won.”
“I hardly understand you, Duke da Sestos.”
Even now there was no fear in her voice.
“Oh, you understand, my white dove,” he continued in a tone that made my blood boil. “You understand perfectly. Even in America, I suppose, young girls do not climb towers alone at night without first of all counting the cost.”
I had heard quite enough. St. Hilary and his casket might go to the devil. I gathered up my cumbersome robes. St. Hilary, his black eyes glowing into mine a few feet away, made a fierce but cautious gesture to lie still If I did so it was not because of St. Hilary, but consideration 259for my own dignity. Jacqueline would never forgive me if I appeared now, I thought. And by his next words the duke seemed to have come to his senses at last.
“Heavens,” he cried despairingly, “I am mad! I have angered you. Forgive me. Say that you forgive me. You shall go when you have said that.”
“If I forgive you,” answered Jacqueline in a cold voice, “it is because I have failed to understand you.”
“But tell me, before we go, why have you promised only to deny? I have been patient. I have endured all. But now, to-night, under this soft moonlight, under these burning stars, with Venice, the Queen of Loves, to listen, I tell you that I love you. Pledge your love to me-here-to-night.”
“I insist that you let me go.”
“In one moment. Tell me why you refuse to keep your word? Is it because that Mr. Hume made me ridiculous before you? If he had not interfered, you would have loved me. I would have made you love me.”
“Really, Duke da Sestos, to be quite exact, you should say if you had not interfered.”
“But when once you know what I know, when I have told you that he is a thief--”
260“Thief!” cried my dear Jacqueline with scorn.
“Is he not a thief who breaks into your rooms, who binds you hand and foot, who steals from you--”
“You dare say that he has done that?” cried Jacqueline, lingering in spite of herself.
“I dare say to his face that he has done just that,” replied the duke hotly. “He has done more than that. He has stolen your heart from me, and for that I shall never forgive him. Never. But I shall yet win you. You are mine. Give me my reward. I implore you. I command you. You are in my power. One kiss, and you shall go. I swear it. No, no, you shall not escape me.”
She screamed. I lifted myself on my elbow to leap down. It was impossible to stay there longer. My robe caught on a nail. While I struggled to free myself the duke saw me, and as I alighted he struck me a violent blow.
He flung himself upon me and pinioned my arms. I struggled furiously, but he had me at a disadvantage. I was down. The moonlight fell on my face. He recognized me.
“Bah, it is our American friend; it is your Mr. Hume,” he cried, with a contempt that was too careless for indignation. There was almost 261a note of good-nature in his contempt, as if I were a loathsome but amusing species of reptile.
I rose panting to my feet. Hell itself can have no greater torment than I suffered then.
“Eavesdropper!” cried the duke, regarding me cynically.
Jacqueline looked at me in horror. “You were listening? And you made no effort to help me?”
The words were not spoken in reproach. It was as if she had uttered a simple truth that was convincing, hopelessly convincing.
I was silent. I could say nothing without betraying St. Hilary.
“Is every one low and despicable? Is there no honor in any one? You-my aunt-” she groped her way toward the stairs.
For the third time the duke and I looked into each others eyes. He was smiling still in his amused, cynical way, but thoughtfully, too.
“So,” he said at last, “you really were listening? Or had you other motives?”
“No,” I said, quite truthfully. “You know perfectly well that I was not listening.”
“I thought so. I am so sorry that I have disturbed Mr. Hume. And now to-night, I suppose, it is useless to keep an eye on him longer. 262There will be no adventures to-night, I am afraid.”
There was a note of real regret in his voice. Had he really known that I was here, or was he lying as usual? In any case, if I could convince him that for to-night, at least, I should make no further attempt to find the casket, he would leave St. Hilary in peace.
“You have beaten me to-night, it is true, but there are other nights. Remember that there are yet five days.”
We descended the tower. I walked deliberately through the palace. The duke pretended not to watch me, but I knew that I should be followed. It was some minutes before my gondola came; for the last of the guests were leaving. I went at once to my rooms. I lighted the gas and exchanged the mummery in which I was clad for a suit of tweeds. Then, with an ulster and golf-cap for St. Hilary, I turned out the gas, made my way out into the garden at the rear, and in ten minutes had pushed open the little gate in the garden wall.
The garden was dark. Only the bloom of a cherry tree and a line of lilies planted the length of the pergola showed white against the gloom. The waning moon hardly touched the top of the garden wall now, but fell full on the palace windows and the tower.
No light was to be seen. The last guest had departed. The Princess Caesarini was grand enough lady to have her own ways in spite of those of the world; and one of them was to be in bed by two o’clock.
The question was, where should I find St. Hilary? I should look for him first, of course, in the tower. It was barely possible that he had waited for me. Scarcely half an hour had passed since I left the palace.
He was seated on the parapet, quietly smoking. He greeted me grimly.
“Well, you have made a nice mess of things. I should have known that failure is always the result of one’s mixing up business and sentiment. 264There can be no search for the casket to-night. Come, let’s be going.”
“Nonsense, St. Hilary,” I cried sharply. “You know very well we shall finish our search to-night. It is natural that you should feel some annoyance-not with me, but with circumstances. I promised you I would not betray myself; but could you have lain quiet in my place?”
“Of course I could,” he mumbled.
“As to there being no further search, why did you wait here if you intended to relinquish it? Why did you not go on with it alone? You have waited, hoping I should return.”
“But you deliberately told the duke that you were hiding, waiting for a chance to find the casket. At least you hinted as much. He understood you to mean that. For aught we know he has put the palace on its guard.”
“Yes,” I answered angrily, “I told him that-deliberately. What else could I do? He must have guessed. But after discovering me, would he think it likely that I should return to continue the search? No. He has seen me leave the palace. He has followed me, or had me followed, to my rooms. He thinks that I am in bed. I am certain that no one has followed me here. He has seen me go out of the palace. He has 265not seen me return. There is the matter in a nutshell.”
“But has he seen me go out?” demanded St. Hilary.
“Are you sure he knows you were at the ball?”
“Ah, that’s the question. I think we ought to fling up our search for to-night.”
“I do not. The finding of that casket is my only chance for happiness now. Where is the key?”
“It is quite useless. It unlocks the outer door of the passage, but the inner door defies this key and some skeleton keys I have with me. Confound these old Italian locks! That round window over your head is the only chance. If you give me a leg up, I think I can pry it open and squeeze through.”
So that was why he had waited! He had attempted, then, to carry on the search without me; he had waited for me only because he had found my help absolutely necessary. Suddenly, I mistrusted St. Hilary. It seemed difficult for his mind to work in normal grooves. Deceit and lying were as natural to him as breathing. And yet, with one exception, he had been fair and generous with me. Was it only to discard me when I was of no further use?
266“But where does the window lead?” I demanded.
“We must take our chances as to that. I am the slighter. Let me go through first.”
I stooped down and braced my arms against the wall. He lightly sprang on my shoulders. I felt him strain and tug at the casement. Then I heard a crack. Waiting a moment to be sure that the slight noise had not aroused any one, he spurned my shoulders, and leaped upward. For an instant his body hovered comically in mid-air. Then it disappeared.
I stood motionless against the wall, listening with all my ears. Five minutes passed, and I began to wonder if he had deserted me, when his head appeared through the window.
“I am standing on a bench. Jump, and catch my hands. This is the only chance to get into the palace that I can see.”
I measured the window with my eye. I kicked a bit of mortar from between two stones in the wall. Edging my toe in, I sprang up. Twice I failed to reach his outstretched arms, but the third time I was successful. A strenuous minute, and I stood panting beside him.
We entered a draughty passage. St. Hilary went confidently to the door at the end, and pushing 267it open, he struck a match. We were in an anteroom. Huge presses ran up to the ceiling on three of the walls. The fourth wall was paneled, and in spite of my excitement, or perhaps because of it, I saw that it was covered with names carved in the oak. In other days this had undoubtedly been the page’s room. And now I had another proof of St. Hilary’s keenness. He opened the door of what I supposed to be one of the presses, and we were in the sala. The air was yet heavy with the smell of perfume and crushed flowers.
“Shall I light one of these candles?” I whispered. “Is it safe?”
He nodded, and I took one of the candles from its sconce. St. Hilary stood by the great fireplace, where two lions crouched.
“These must be the two lions of the eighth landmark,” I said.
I held the candle high above my head. As the light flared, vague spectral forms seemed to spring out of the darkness and to vanish. Our shadows, gigantic and monstrous, danced grotesquely on the polished floor. In a dozen mirrors our figures were dimly reflected.
“The ninth hour?” demanded St. Hilary hoarsely.
268“And Joseph said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream, and behold, the sun and moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me,” I answered.
He clutched my arm. He pointed far above the mantel.
At first I did not understand. In front of us yawned the great fireplace. Two bowed and wearied giants supported the hooded marble mantel, their feet braced fantastically against the two crouching lions. The polished breasts and thighs of the figures glowed in the faint candle-light. Above, the space from the mantel to the very ceiling was filled with paneling, dark and somber with age and smoke, all richly and delicately carved, a design infinitely confusing with its entwined and intricate figures. A medley of chariots and horses, armored warriors and banners, all impossibly crowded together, like a frieze in a Greek temple-that is my vague impression of the carving.
“The sun and the moon and the eleven stars,” muttered St. Hilary, still pointing.
Suddenly I understood. It was the scene of Joshua going forth to battle, commanding the sun and moon to stand still. On the right shone the sun, its rays naively depicted; on the left shone the moon. Joshua held a banner in his hand, and on the banner were eleven stars.
269“There must be a spring concealed in the paneling. If we strike one of those stars--”
St. Hilary did not finish his sentence. He carried a console table toward the mantel. For once I was the quicker. I caught the mantel, braced myself on one of the giants, and so lifted myself up on it.
I struck each of the stars in turn sharply with my palm.
“Here-the dagger,” cried St. Hilary, and taking the dagger he wore from his belt he tossed it up to me. Again I struck each of the stars with the hilt of the dagger. One moment I was staring at the paneling; the next, the paneling to the right of the chimney had slid noiselessly up and I was looking into a square hole big enough to admit one’s body.
A clock somewhere in the palace struck the hour of four.
“It is the hour,” I whispered, staring down at St. Hilary. “We are to inherit Time’s legacy at last.”
St. Hilary did not answer. He was scrambling up on the table.
I waved him back imperatively. His lack of self-control restored mine. Now that I was here I had no intention of giving way to him.
“Get down,” I cried. “Are you mad? One 270of us must keep watch. Before I crawl up into the shaft I shall lower the paneled door. Push away the table there. If any one should come--”
The sentence died on my lips. His sallow face, lighted by the feeble flicker of the candle, was flushed with intense excitement. One thinks of the taper as standing before holy altars, shining on meek-eyed Madonnas and saints. But the candle he held before him revealed something of the cunning greed of the miser in his glittering eyes, something of the fierce desire of the madman. He stood perfectly motionless, gazing upward at the ceiling. One might have thought he was in a trance.
“St. Hilary! St. Hilary!” I cried, shocked at this display of emotion. “What is it, man?”
His lips tried hard to speak, but no words came from them. Then he pointed upward to the beams above his head. I followed his tense gaze. Then I understood his strange excitement.
As in all Venetian palaces, the ceiling of this sala grande was made of massive beams stretching from wall to wall. The space between these sunken beams was covered with boards nailed on top of them.
In one of these sunken beams da Sestos had 271hidden the casket. I could see it as I stood on the mantel, just out of my reach.
The spring that had released the paneling must have opened at the same time a tiny door at the side of this beam. As I moved my candle, I caught the gleam of shining metal. We had found the casket. The last three scenes of the hours, then, were meaningless.
I crawled into the shaft. I stood erect. My head was on a level with a space hardly more than a foot high between the ceiling of the sala and the floor of the apartment above. I drew myself painfully along this narrow interstice, St. Hilary’s dagger in one hand and the candle in the other. When I had reached what I thought to be the location of the casket, I brushed the dust away, and I saw several brass nails driven into the boards, forming a small circle. I struck at the circle with the sharp dagger until I could thrust my arm through the aperture I had made. I felt along the beam immediately below, and I touched the cold metal. My fingers traveled lovingly over its smooth surface. Slowly and carefully I drew the casket from its hiding-place. It was heavy-incredibly heavy. Very faintly I heard St. Hilary utter a cry of joy. I closed the little door of the beam, then I lowered 272myself into the shaft again, the precious casket clasped in both my hands. But the shaft was too narrow for me to leave it and still hold the casket. I must hand it first to St. Hilary. I stooped down and held it out. I had heard him step from the table to the mantel.
“Here it is, St. Hilary,” I said hoarsely.
It was clutched, brutally, out of my lingering grasp. A sharp blow struck my hand, then there was darkness. The paneled door had been closed. I heard the spring click as it shut tight. St. Hilary had played me false. Too late I thought of my distrust of him.
I pulled myself up into the shaft again to fetch the dagger I had left on the floor above. I struck the paneling along the edge of the top until I had located the spring. Then I hacked at the hard board till I felt it give way. I raised it cautiously and stepped out on the mantel. It had taken me half an hour to free myself.
Closing the panel door after me, I sprang lightly to the floor. I did not dare attempt to escape from the palace by the way of the tower. I stole across the polished floor out to the landing. I listened at the head of the stairs. In the hall below I could hear the clatter of wooden pattens on the marble flags. There was the swish of a broom. A door slammed, then all was still. I descended the stairway rapidly.
To my joy the double doors of glass leading out into the garden were open. I might be seen from the window of the palazzo while crossing the garden to the little gate, but I had to take the chance. I stole out into the garden. I gained the shelter of the pergola. I reached the gate, slipped out into the street, and closed it behind me. In two minutes I had lost myself in the market crowd in the Campo San Bartolomeo.
And now what should I do? It was impossible to avail myself of the ordinary channels of the law. I had no more legal right to the casket 274than had St. Hilary. I must rely on my own wits.
Would he already have left Venice? Perhaps. In that case it would be a stern, almost a hopeless, chase. But if he had not done so, how would he attempt to escape from me?
I looked at my watch. It was not quite five. I knew that the next train leaving Venice was at eight-thirty. A boat sailed to Trieste three times a week. One left Venice this evening at seven. At twelve a P. and O. liner sailed for Brindisi. These were the regular means of travel. But nothing could be more simple than for him to hire a craft. If one pays enough, one can go anywhere. The search seemed almost hopeless.
Obviously, the first thing for me to do was to go to St. Hilary’s hotel. I was not so simple as to expect to find him there, but I might learn if he had made any plans beforehand to leave Venice.
His hotel was on the Riva, not far from Danielli’s. The concierge knew me well, and in answer to my careless inquiry as to whether St. Hilary had been in his rooms since last night, he went up-stairs to inquire. There was no answer to his knock. I bade him open the door, and told him I would wait for my friend. He did so, and I entered.
275My worst fears were realized. Two heavy trunks were strapped and labeled. The address was simply in the care of a forwarding agent in London.
His razors and hair-brushes, however, were still on the dressing-table, and an open bag on the chair. If he had planned returning to his rooms he would not imperil the loss of the casket by bothering about these paltry toilet articles. That was my first thought. But even as I was closing the door behind me I paused. Would he not, indeed? He was still in the fancy costume of the ball. True, he had my ulster and golf cap, but the day promised to be warm. Could he travel thus without attracting attention? Unless he were to leave Venice by private boat, he would be almost sure to change his clothes. I abandoned my intention of going to the railway station. I would remain here at his rooms. And yet I must send some one. Whom could I trust? There was Pietro, of course; he knew St. Hilary. But Pietro had played me false; he would play me false again, unless I made it worth his while not to do so. I must make it worth his while. I sent one of the hotel servants to fetch my man. In twenty minutes he arrived, smiling.
I had taken the precaution the night before 276to put a considerable sum of money in my pockets. I did not know what emergency might confront us before the dawn, or how soon it might be convenient for us to leave Venice. I dangled a hundred-lire note suggestively before Pietro’s nose. I assured him that I knew he was an arrant rogue. I sympathized with him (or pretended to) in his determination to sell his rascally services to the highest bidder. I hinted that this hundred-lire note should not be the last if he could only make up his mind to obey me implicitly for a few hours or days.
Pietro gulped with emotion. He swore by all his hopes of heaven and with tears that he loved me dearly. He could not take my money. He would cheerfully murder any enemy of mine out of sheer gratitude for my kindness to him; but he could not take the money. No, no, not for himself, but-for expenses, yes. He pocketed the note with an oily smile.
My directions to him were simple. He was to betake himself to the railway station. He was first of all to assure himself that St. Hilary was not on the eight-thirty train. If he were not on that train, Pietro was to keep watch for him on the landing of the railway station until six o’clock in the evening. If the dealer was on the eight-thirty train, or if he appeared later, Pietro 277was to go where he went, if that meant to the ends of the earth. But, above all, he was to keep out of sight.
I had still the P. and O. liner and the boat to Trieste to watch. The liner I could take care of myself from St. Hilary’s window, or better still, a seat on the Riva under the hotel awning. She was anchored not a hundred feet away, and I could readily make out every passenger who boarded her. As for the boat to Trieste, it did not go until seven in the evening, and I could recall Pietro from his post at six if necessary; for there was no train between six and nine.
I could do nothing more at present except keep a watchful eye open for St. Hilary, and that, as I have said, I could do as well, or even better, from the Riva below. And now that I was forced to inaction for the present, I was conscious that I had had nothing to eat since the evening before.
I locked St. Hilary’s door after me. I settled myself at a little table under the red-and-white striped awning, where, quite inconspicuous myself, I could see every one who entered or came out of the hotel.
The sun rose higher and higher over San Georgio’s. The golden angel on the campanile grew brighter and brighter, until she seemed a 278thing alive, quivering in her eagerness to spring into that deep lake of blue. The dazzling whiteness of the pavement toward the Molo gradually became alive with moving spots of variegated color. The teeming life of the broad street amused me for a while. But now that the excitement was passed, now that I was very near despair, though I would not acknowledge it, I found it difficult to be alert. It seemed useless to make any pretence at watching at all. I felt very sleepy.
The heat of the early afternoon became almost intolerable. I struggled and fought against an almost overpowering drowsiness. Suddenly I was wide awake. Duke da Sestos had just come out of Danielli’s. He was walking toward me. He saw me. He raised his hat, and smiled.
“Ah, it is my friend Hume,” he purred. “I had thought that Mr. Hume had left Venice.”
I ignored the left hand he extended negligently toward me. He had as many changes of front as a Russian diplomatist. Then I laughed. His cool effrontery was downright amusing.
“And why should I have left Venice?” I asked easily. “Did you think you had frightened me off last night?”
“Ah, ha,” he twirled his mustache with the utmost good-nature, “I know my friend Hume too well to think that he is so easily frightened. But it is a pity that your wit, my friend, is not as great as your courage.”
“And how is my stupidity manifesting itself just at present?”
He threw back his head and laughed silently-at least, insofar as a cat can laugh. Then he lowered himself into a chair by my side, leaned forward, and tapped me lightly on the shoulder.
“I am clairvoyant. Par example, you are waiting for a friend, n’est ce pas? Oh, I do not 280mean myself. Shall we call that friend Mr. St. Hilary?”
“And then--”
“And then,” he continued jocularly, “if this Mr. St. Hilary should not come-if he had not a notion of coming?”
“I should be a fool to sit here-is that the inference?”
His shoulders shook, as if he found the joke amusing. But how should he know anything of St. Hilary’s movements? Or, guessing them, that I could be seriously affected by them?
“Am I to understand,” I demanded, sitting upright, “that you have information as to Mr. St. Hilary’s whereabouts?”
“Very precise information, I assure you, my friend,” he cried, his blue eyes dancing. “When one sees a gondola racing to the railway station, with two rowers, so great is the hurry, one may reasonably infer that the gentleman who sits under the felsa smoking a cigarette is on his way to take a train, hein?”
“So you saw Mr. St. Hilary on his way to the railway station?” I said slowly. “And the time?”
“It was not so late as seven, and certainly not before half-past six.”
My worst fears were realized. Pietro had let 281him slip through his fingers at the eight-thirty train. But at least I would not give this Italian the satisfaction of seeing the consternation the news gave me, and I answered indifferently:
“A little trip to Milan, I suppose. If he had been going far I should certainly have seen him before his departure.”
“But, Mr. Hume,” cried the duke in triumph, “when the gondola is piled high with boxes, is it reasonable to think that our friend simply runs off to Milan? No, no; Naples, perhaps, or Paris, or London.”
“What! You saw his trunks?” I cried.
The duke held up his five fingers.
“So many.”
I turned easily in my seat and looked him over coolly. I had every reason to believe that St. Hilary possessed only two trunks, and that these two trunks were in his room up-stairs.
“Yes, it is strange that he should not have said good-by to me,” I said musingly.
“Is it so strange?” queried the duke, and again he tapped me on the shoulder. “Come, come, Mr. Hume, have I not said that I am clairvoyant?”
“Your proofs have not been convincing. Suppose that you give me a better illustration of this remarkable gift of yours.”
282“Well, then, I could have told you yesterday that your friend would bear watching.”
“You seem to know a good deal about the character of Mr. St. Hilary,” I said, and rose from my seat with a yawn.
The duke rose and took my arm. He had not yet done with me, it appeared.
“You walk toward the Piazza? Permit me to walk with you. Yes, yes, I know a good deal of your friend’s character. We have had many interesting talks together before now; and, let me tell you, Mr. St. Hilary did me the honor of bidding me good-by.”
“And is that the reason you are so happy?” I asked, staring at him. My question had been put seriously. For the first time this afternoon I was interested in his answer.
“So happy?” he retorted, shrugging his shoulders; then, with apparent frankness, “But I am to see Mr. St. Hilary again. Yes; I am to join him presently at Naples, perhaps, or Paris, or London. By the way, you have yet three days in which to prove me a liar,” he added good-humoredly.
“And three days are a long time sometimes,” I said curtly. “Good afternoon; I take a gondola here to my rooms.”
“Adieu,” he purred, but he still held my arm. 283“Do you remember that charming afternoon we spent, all four of us, in my poor palazzo? I presented to each of the ladies a little souvenir. To Mrs. Gordon I gave the useless old clock; to Miss Quintard, the chest that once contained the casket I have found and given to her. But to you I gave nothing. Our dealer, I have reason to think, has consoled himself. To you alone, my friend, I have been remiss.”
“Your regret is touching,” I murmured.
“But there is a little book I came across the other day when I was packing up my few belongings. It is only fourteen pages, but these fourteen pages are interesting. I have known travelers go all the way to St. Petersburg to consult them. Would it amuse you-this little souvenir? Or am I to infer that since the departure of your co-laborer in antiquarian studies you are no longer interested in curiosities?”
If I could have flung him into the muddy waters of the canal I should have been a little less miserable, but I affected the utmost delight. In the first place, I was really interested in seeing those pages. Again, I hoped to understand a little more clearly the drift of this afternoon’s talk. His reference to St. Hilary mystified me.
“I shall be charmed to receive it,” I cried.
284The duke had watched my momentary indecision with evident anxiety. Now he seized my arm again and squeezed it in the warmth of his satisfaction. His face was radiant.
“Good! Good! My rooms are but a few feet from the Capello Nero.”
“So St. Hilary informed me,” I said pointedly.
“Ah, he is a wonderful man, your friend. Such resource, such imagination! And always on the lookout for himself, hein?”
The duke’s apartments were almost empty of furniture. There were no rugs on the floor, no belongings of a personal nature in sight. The pictures were covered, and the chairs formally ranged about the walls. The clock on the mantelpiece had stopped. Some old newspapers and magazines heaped on the library table were the only sign that the room was lived in. Otherwise the room was bare.
“You must excuse the appearance of my poor chambers; I leave Venice this evening.”
“All the world seems to be leaving Venice to-day,” I observed lightly.
“Absolutely. First of all, your friend Mr. St. Hilary, and now Mrs. Gordon, her niece, and myself. My poor friend, you will be lonely, I fear.”
285“Your concern touches me,” I said, and walked to the window. “When I have received from you my souvenir, I am going to my rooms to make preparations for leaving Venice myself.”
The duke was turning over the magazines and papers on the library table.
“Everything is in confusion. I can not find my little book. Old Luigi is an imbecile. Perhaps he has destroyed these precious fourteen pages. May I trouble you to ring the bell near that window? We will ask Luigi.”
I was puzzled, I confess it. Why had he brought me to his apartment? Simply to gloat over me? Or had he some purpose more useful than that?
There was a knock at the door. Instead of bidding the servant enter, the duke himself answered it, stepping out in the hallway, closing the door carefully after him.
I walked over to the table, and turned over carelessly the papers and magazines. The glint of steel caught my eye. He had hidden a revolver under the rubbish while pretending to look for the fourteen pages. In two seconds it was in my pocket and I had taken my stand at the window again, one hand in my coat pocket, the other pulling at my mustache.
“That imbecile Luigi had put away the pages 286for safe keeping in a portfolio. But he is to fetch the portfolio at once.”
He seated himself carelessly on the table, swinging one leg. He picked up an illustrated weekly.
“Are you interested in horses? Here are some capital snap-shots of good riding during the man?uvers at Asti.”
I crossed the room and looked over his shoulder. When we had exhausted the magazines he bethought him of the pictures hanging on the wall. He lifted the muslin coverings and showed them to me, one by one, expatiating on their beauties. Evidently he was trying to kill time. Unconsciously I glanced at the clock, a modern timepiece about three feet high, standing on the mantel. I had forgotten that it had stopped. The hands, I noticed, stood at half-past six.
The duke now took up his position at the window, while I stood with my back to the mantel. It just reached my shoulder. For the first time it occurred to me that he had wished to get me away from the window. He wished the post of observation for himself. I wondered if it were worth while for me to join him.
For perhaps thirty seconds there was silence between us. I say thirty seconds, and I measured that interval by thirty ticks. At first I 287heard them listlessly. They were faint, muffled, and strangely slow. Then I remembered with a start that the clock had stopped. It was impossible for them to come from the watch in my pocket. They sounded close to my ears, and my ears were not two inches away from the clock that had stopped.
For a moment the strange phenomenon bewildered me. Then I understood. The casket was inside the clock; and the mechanism that would release the cover in twelve hours had been set going.
As if the duke were the clairvoyant he had mockingly pretended to be, he turned sharply on his heel. I was gazing up at the ceiling.
“Luigi is a long time,” he muttered. “It is possible that the thieves who broke into my rooms some months ago stole it after all.”
“Thieves!”
“Yes, my friend, thieves. But I am taking precautions for my safety in the future.” He laughed shortly, and looked out of the window again.
That hint was as foolish as my boast a few days before. So he had sent old Luigi for the gendarmes. He was holding me here. Well, I hardly cared to see the gendarmes just now. It was time for me to act.
288I reached swiftly up. I lifted the clock from the mantel to the floor. The jar of the wheels as it touched the floor made him spin about like a mechanical toy. I was pointing the muzzle of his useful weapon at him over the clock.
“Sit down,” I said quietly.
He clutched the edge of the chair, his mouth drooping.
“And quickly!” I cried sharply.
He sank into the chair behind him, his hands trembling violently.
“But-but-this is an outrage!” he gasped.
“My dear duke, you are not the only clairvoyant. In my poor way I can see through a wooden case. But this propensity of yours to play the cat with the poor little mouse is dangerous. Sometimes the little harmless mouse turns out to be a rat. And rats sometimes bite.”
For the second time I held the casket in my hand, but even now it was impossible for me to look at it. I had to keep my eye on the duke. I picked it up and walked to the table near which the duke was seated.
“Tell me,” I asked laughingly, “did you bring me to this room for the sheer joy of gloating over my nearness to this toy that I have been struggling to possess for the past month, knowing how impossibly far it was from me? Did it afford you so much pleasure to play with me, to tease me, that you pushed your game so dangerously far? If so, you are an artist, my dear duke.”
“Mr. Hume is generous in his compliments.”
“Or,” I continued, thrusting my face nearer to his, “am I mistaken in thinking that most of your words and deeds are spoken and acted with some purpose in view?”
“For example?” he asked lightly.
“For example,” I repeated, “it was hardly for love of me that you spoke to me this afternoon.”
290“Hardly,” he sneered, pale with rage and disappointment. “Rather because I hated you so much that I wished to amuse myself at your expense.”
“Or is there a third possibility?” I continued scornfully. “That you wished to avenge yourself? While you were taunting me with St. Hilary’s perfidy, or his supposed perfidy, the idea occurred to you that if you could induce me to come to your rooms, if you could hold me there while you sent Luigi for the gendarmes, you might have me committed to jail for assault, perhaps, or complicity in breaking into your rooms. On the whole, I am inclined to think that this view of the case is the most reasonable.”
“As you will, Mr. Hume,” he answered, his lips white and trembling.
“Now listen to me, Duke da Sestos. Granting that I am correct, the gendarmes will be here presently. Luigi has been gone some time. Before they come, I wish to put the case clearly before you. This casket and these jewels belong neither to me nor to you. They are the property of the state. When your gendarmes come, be sure I shall make that clear.”
“Pooh! I have always known that you were a fool,” he cried contemptuously.
“Ah, I thought you would listen to reason,” 291I said quickly. “Now tell me frankly: Why have you been so keen on this hunt for the casket? Was it to please Miss Quintard or to please yourself?”
“Why not both? In pleasing myself perhaps I should be pleasing Miss Quintard.”
“And perhaps not,” I replied drily. “A truthful answer, duke, if you please. We have no time to lose-if you care anything for the baubles in this casket.”
“Well, then, for myself,” he said, looking at me curiously.
“And if I had not surprised you just now, you would have taken your casketful of jewels to London or Paris to dispose of them at leisure?”
“Perhaps,” he assented insolently.
“Or would you have taken this casket to Miss Quintard and apologized for making a slight error?”
“Why could I not have done both?” he cried. “Yes, Mr. Hume, even if you give it to the gendarmes, the casket is mine-legally and morally. The state will grant my claim, and then--”
“That is the point I was coming to. Supposing you were offered a share of these baubles-I do not say how great a share-is it possible that you could be induced to give up the casket?”
292“I have heard there is an English proverb that it is better to have a bird in one’s hand than two birds in the bushes.”
“But allow me to remind you that in this instance the bird is in my hands.”
“For the present,” he interrupted with a meaning glance.
“Come, come,” I cried sharply, “we have had enough of this quibbling. I make you a sporting proposition. I will give you a share of these jewels for the casket.”
“I am afraid,” he said suspiciously, “my share would be rather a small one.”
“It would be one-third,” I said quietly. “I am not a thief. I covet no stolen property, and these stones were stolen. The price of blood is on them. Whether they were stolen to-day or five hundred years ago, the moral aspect of the case is the same. But I want that casket, and I must have it.”
“Who gets the other two-thirds?” demanded the duke, like a greedy glutton. “St. Hilary, I suppose.”
“If he can prove to me that he has played fair.”
The duke thought a minute. “Very well, I agree.”
I emptied the chambers of the revolver’s cartridges. 293I put them into my pocket. I pushed the weapon carefully under the newspapers again.
“And now that the strain of the past five minutes is over, I suppose I may have a look at my casket?”
“With pleasure.” The duke bowed sardonically.
In shape and size it was not unlike the pseudo da Sestos casket with which the duke had attempted to deceive Jacqueline.
It was of bronze, overlaid with plaques of gold, enriched with cloisonné enameled work and precious stones, cut for the most part en cabochon. The cover rose to an apex. At the apex was a knob of wrought gold, in shape a monster’s head, the eyes formed of minute rubies. At the four corners of the cover were large semi-precious stones of chalcedony, rock-crystal, carbuncle, and turquoise. From these four stones to the knob of gold ran lines of pearls.
The sides of the casket were composed of rectangular plaques, alternately covered with symmetrical designs in colored cloisonné enamel, partly opaque and partly translucent. These plaques were studded with pearls framed with a cunning design of scrolls and filigree work.
294“It would fetch a thousand pounds at Christie’s any day,” I mused.
“Will you tell me how long that toy must tick before the cover can be opened?” interrupted the duke.
“When did you set the mechanism?”
“At precisely twenty-five minutes to seven.”
“Then in half an hour the casket will be opened.”
There was a loud knock on the door.
“Ah, your gendarmes,” I said coolly.
“And, as host, may I receive my guests?”
“Do,” I urged, and seated myself in his chair, the casket on my knees.
He opened the door. Two impossibly solemn gendarmes entered, precisely alike as two files. Keeping step, each with each, their hands on their sword hilts, they advanced to the middle of the room and saluted. Old Luigi stood discreetly without. I hope it is no disgrace to confess that I awaited the duke’s orders with some trepidation.
“We have received word,” said the duke calmly, and he waved his hand toward me, “that an American gentleman, returning from the bal masqué at the C?sarini Palace, early this morning, was assaulted by ruffians near the Calle Bianca Madonna, and knocked insensible. He 295was then carried to an empty house in the Jewish quarter. It is the third right-hand house on the quay of the Mestre Canal as you enter it. Release the gentleman. Tell him that his friend, Signore Hume, wishes to speak with him here. See that he comes. That is all.”
The gendarmes saluted as one man, spun about on their heels and marched from the room, their red and white plumes nodding.
“The gentleman to be found in the Jewish quarter is, of course, St. Hilary. It requires no great imagination to guess that you had him confined there. It would interest me to know how you managed last night.”
“Oh, believe me, nothing could have been simpler,” replied the duke. “I knew, you may be sure, that you were not spying on Miss Quintard and myself in the tower. As a matter of fact, I was bitterly disappointed when you showed yourself; for, frankly, Mr. St. Hilary and you had been seen ascending the tower, and it was known that you were concealed somewhere. But we had not thought of the beams up there. When you were discovered I had presence of mind enough not to rout out your friend. All we had to do, then, was to watch him. We made our way into the sala after you, and, lying concealed until the dramatic moment, my Punchinello 296took care of your friend, while I took care of your casket.”
“But how did you know we were to take the casket that night?”
“You have been watched for a week. It is so much easier and more sensible to reap where others have sown than to dirty one’s own fingers with the plow.”
“Then,” I said with a sigh of relief, “St. Hilary played fair?”
“So far as I know,” replied the duke indifferently. “But I hear him coming up the stairs. You can ask him for yourself.”
The door burst open, and St. Hilary rushed in. A bandage stained with blood and dirt was wrapped about his head. He was still in my ulster and golf cap. He looked as if he had spent a few bad quarters of an hour.
“You are just in time, St. Hilary,” I cried, “to see the casket opened.”
“What! You have beaten him after all!” He glared at the duke.
“With neatness and despatch,” generously complimented the duke.
St. Hilary did not answer. He stood looking down at the casket, holding his watch in his hand. It was now six-thirty. The clock on the Piazza told the half-hour.
297“Did you set the mechanism at six thirty-five precisely?” I asked anxiously.
“At six thirty-five precisely,” answered the duke, frowning too in anxiety.
“Tut, tut! Do you expect the accuracy of a watch of the twentieth century in this mechanism?” replied St. Hilary irritably. “It may be several minutes before the casket opens.”
“In that case, I fear, Mr. Hume, that you may have to delay fulfilling your promise to Miss Quintard.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Do you forget that she leaves Venice at seven-thirty?”
“What are you talking about?” asked St. Hilary roughly, his eyes fixed on the casket.
“The duke has just been reminding me that the casket is legally his, and that, if necessary, he will lay his claim before the state.”
“But we are not fools enough to care a straw about his claim,” growled the dealer. “We have beaten him at his own game. It is too late for him to cry out.”
“On the contrary,” I said coolly, “the duke has induced me to recognize that claim.”
“Yes, I have exchanged my casket for a share of its contents,” added the duke suavely.
For a moment St. Hilary forgot to keep his 298eye on the casket. He glared at me with bloodshot eyes.
“Surrendered his claim! To you? By heavens, do you think, Hume, that you can ignore me?”
“I have not ignored you, St. Hilary. If you lose the casket, you have two-thirds of the gems. It is better, I should think, to have that two-thirds than to have any trouble with the state.”
“Precisely,” beamed the duke.
“Very well,” agreed the dealer grudgingly.
It was now a quarter to seven. Still we could hear the muffled tick.
“It really looks as if Mr. Hume would miss his train,” mocked the duke.
At that instant there was a loud click. The duke started perceptibly. St. Hilary, pale with excitement, flung up his hands. I threw back the cover.
The room seemed suddenly irradiated with a flash of multi-colored light. Five great gems glowed in their compartments of purple velvet in the topmost tray. St. Hilary and the duke uttered cries of joy. If I must confess it, these stones affected me hardly more than a display in any jeweler’s window in Bond Street or Fifth Avenue.
“The minutes are more precious to me than 299those gems,” I cried. “Take out the trays, or I shall empty the contents of the casket on the table.”
“When once we have closed the shutters,” said St. Hilary.
He started to go to the windows, but noticing that the duke did not move, he halted suspiciously. They were like two beasts with their prey between them.
“I will close the shutters for you,” I said, laughing grimly at the greed that distorted their faces.
As I left the room with the casket in a bag which the duke procured for me, my last look caught a glimpse of the two men seated one on each side of the table. A lighted candle was at each elbow, and the trays of gems lay between them.
It was twenty minutes past seven when I paid my gondolier his fare at the railway station. I bought a first-class ticket to Milan and hurried down the long platform. Already the guards were calling to the passengers to take their places, and were closing the doors of the carriages.
Jacqueline herself I did not see, but her maid sat at the open window of a compartment reserved for women. Fortunately, it was a corridor train.
Before taking the casket to Jacqueline I cast one long look back at Venice. Never had her fairy architecture looked more entrancing, more ethereal. She was more mystical in this golden light than Arthur’s City of Avalon. But this enchantress of the seas had proved but a siren after all. For me her beauty had crumbled to ashes. Like my dreams, she had proved bitterly disappointing; for these dreams had been as intangible and difficult to realize as her charm.
I was turning my face away from the city of dead hopes and vanished dreams confidently to 301a workaday world; and if I could melt Jacqueline’s pride, and win her forgiveness, I might yet look forward to love and happiness.
I walked slowly down the corridor to her compartment. I stood quietly at the door a moment. She turned from the open window where she had been standing. There were tears in her eyes.
“Do you not think that you have caused me enough pain and embarrassment without troubling me further just now?”
“Jacqueline, you asked me to bring you the casket. You promised that you would listen to me when I brought it. There it is. It has cost me something, that casket-your love and your respect. In doing precisely what you asked me, I have lost all that is dearest to me in the world. But there it is. It is really the casket of da Sestos.”
I placed it on the seat beside her.
“All this is painfully theatrical, Mr. Hume,” she said disdainfully. “I can have no possible use for it. Will you please take it again? I wish to heaven that I had never heard of it.”
“Can you really be in earnest, Jacqueline?” I asked sadly. “Are you determined to be unjust? Are you quite resolved not to listen to me?”
“I am quite resolved,” she answered scornfully, 302“to be just to myself. And now will you please go?”
“I must go if you insist,” I said gravely, and I stooped to pick up the casket.
Then I saw that I was indeed the fool St. Hilary had so often called me. For her dear eyes belied her cruel words. They were full of doubt and despair. They beseeched me to be strong, to be ruthless, to break down her outraged pride. She longed to understand, to forgive me, but I must make her understand.
I sat beside her; I held both her hands firmly in mine.
“Jacqueline, it is impossible for me to go like this. My happiness, yes, and your happiness as well, is at stake. You must listen to me. It is my right. I refuse to go until I have told you the story of this casket. But I want you to listen to that story without prejudice. When I have told you everything, I hope you will see that I have tried to do just what you wished me to do. I am trying to be, now, just what you wished me to be. Though I hurt you by staying, yet I shall stay; for you told me that the man you loved must have something of the relentless about him. I shall remain relentless until I have gained my happiness and yours.”
“If it were possible for me to dispute the 303evidence of my own eyes, how gladly I would listen and exonerate you!”
“Then listen, Jacqueline.”
I told her of my search for the casket. I let the story plead for itself. When I had finished, she sat very still, her face shaded from the dim lamp in the center of the carriage by the partition of the seat.
“It was a foolish thing to ask,” she said, her eyes shining. “But oh, Dick, I am glad I did ask it. I know now that you are really strong and patient. You would dare much for the woman you love. Forgive me that I did not trust you. I wanted to, but last night it seemed--”
She leaned toward me, and I caught her in my arms.
Without, the moonlight fell on the mulberry trees, rows and rows of them, their branches festooned fantastically from tree to tree. They looked like figures stiffly dancing to an old-time minuet.
The End