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.dt The Clock and the Key, by Arthur Henry Vesey

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Transcriber’s Note:

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.sp 4
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<xxl>THE CLOCK AND THE KEY</xxl>
.bn 002.png
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.sp 4

.h1
THE CLOCK AND | THE KEY

.sp 4
.nf c
BY

<l>ARTHUR HENRY VESEY</l>

<s>AUTHOR OF “A CHEQUE FOR THREE THOUSAND”
“A PEDIGREE IN PAWN,” ETC.</s>
.nf-

.sp 4
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.nf c
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1905
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.sp 2

.nf c
<s><sc>Copyright, 1905, by</sc></s>
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
.nf-

.ti 4
<s><i>Published February, 1905</i></s>
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.pb

.sp 4
.nf c
TO
<bl>M. B. L.</bl>
.nf-
.sp 4
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.pn 1
.pb
.sp 4
.h1
THE CLOCK AND THE KEY
.sp 2

.hr 10%
.sp 4
.h2 nobreak
CHAPTER I

.sp 2
Our gondola, far out on the lagoon, hardly
moved. But neither Jacqueline nor I, under the
red and white striped awning, cared much, and
Pietro even dared to light a cigarette.

Silver-gray dome, campanile, and spire
gleamed through the golden haze that hung over
the enchanted city. A great stillness was over
all–only the ripple of Pietro’s lazy oar, and
faintly, very faintly, bells chiming.

“I have dreamed of it,” said Jacqueline.
“Only the dreams were such futile things compared
with the reality. I close my eyes. I open
them quickly. I am afraid it will all be blown
away, vanish in a single moment. But there it
is, your dear, dear Venice–the green garden
away up there; the white Riva, basking in the
sunlight; the rosy palace; and the red and orange
sails, drifting slowly along. We shall return to
the Piazza presently, and St. Mark’s will be
.bn 008.png
.pn +1
there, and the pigeons, and the white palaces.
Oh, there is not a false note to destroy the perfect
charm of Venice, not one.”

I aroused myself. While Jacqueline had been
intoxicated with the beauty of Venice, I had been
intoxicated with the beauty of Jacqueline. I
must say something, and something prosaic, or I
should be forgetting myself.

“Oh, favored of the gods,” I murmured, “to
be dead to unpleasant sights and sounds. And
yet, not in Paradise, not even in this Paradise,
are they quite shut out. Look, there is a penny
steamer making its blatant way from the Molo
to the Giudecca. And that far-off rumble is the
express crossing the long bridge from Mestre.
And, whew, that’s the twelve-o’clock whistle at
the Arsenal. There you have three notes of
progress and civilization in this city of dead
dreams and dead hopes.”

Jacqueline turned in her seat and looked at me
curiously.

“My dear Richard, will you answer me one
question?”

“Gladly, if it is not too difficult. But don’t
forget, Jacqueline, Venice is not exactly an intellectual
center.”

“Then tell me, please, why it is that when you
were in New York, hardly two months ago, you
.bn 009.png
.pn +1
talked so charmingly of your Venetian skies and
still lagoons that you quite made me long for
them. But now, when I am at last under one of
your wonderful skies and on your wonderful
lagoon, instead of helping me to love it all, and
sympathizing with me, you insist on the horrible
things that clash–things I would so gladly forget
for the happy moment.”

“Because,” I answered gravely, “I must not
allow myself to forget that one happy moment is
not a lifetime.”

“Really, I don’t understand you.“

She looked at me frankly–too frankly–that
was the trouble. I hesitated. In spite of the
flimsy excuses her aunt had suspiciously erected,
I had brought Jacqueline alone with me here to
tell her why I must not allow myself to love her;
and, I may add, to hear her laugh to delicious
scorn my reasons. And yet I hesitated. Sometimes
I felt she cared for me. But if I answered
her question truthfully, I risked a cruel awakening.

“Do you know how long I have been living in
Venice?” I asked presently, with apparent
irrelevance.

“Three years, is it not?”

“That is a long time to be dreaming and loafing,
isn’t it?”
.bn 010.png
.pn +1

“Yes.” Her eyes looked gravely out on the
lagoon.

“And it seems to you hardly a manly, strenuous
life for a man of–shall we say–thirty years
of age, to spend three years rocking himself to
sleep, as it were, in a gondola?”

“No,” she laughed nervously; “hardly a
strenuous life.”

“Such a life as that,” I persisted, “must contrast
rather unfavorably with the lives of men
you know in New York, for example?”

“I suppose one may spend one’s life well even
here in Venice.”

I laughed rather bitterly.

“One gets up at ten,” I murmured. “One has
coffee in bed, and dawdles over the papers. A
gentle, gentle walk till twelve–to the garden,
perhaps–oh, you can walk miles in Venice,
though most tourists think not. At twelve, breakfast
at Florian’s on the Piazza. A long smoke,
perhaps a row to the Lido and a swim, if it is
summer. At five another long smoke and incidentally
a long drink on the Piazza again, and
the band. At seven, dinner at the Grundewald,
a momentous affair, when one hesitates ten minutes
over the menu. Then another long smoke
out in the lagoon, under the stars, with the lights
of Venice in the distance, and in the distance, too,
.bn 011.png
.pn +1
the herd of tourists, splitting their gloves in ecstasy
over the efforts of the tenor robusto under
the balconies of the Grand Hotel. And then,
wicked, dreamless slumber. The next morning,
the same thing over again.”

Jacqueline gasped. She looked at me with a
curious intentness, and I was uneasy under her
gaze. I knew she was noting quite ruthlessly that
I was getting fat.

“It is difficult to keep quite fit in Venice,” I
pleaded.

“And you really have done that for three
years,” she said at last, almost in admiration.
It was as if I were a strange animal doing clever
tricks.

“For three years, barring flights to New York
and London in January and February, and a few
weeks in the Tyrol during July and August,” I
answered steadily.

“And you really like it?” she asked, still wonderingly.

“I can never imagine myself liking it again.
I have despised myself since last Tuesday.”

“Since last Tuesday!” she echoed, and then
blushed. It was on Tuesday that Jacqueline and
her aunt had arrived in Venice. “But you are
not answering my first question.”

“I am answering it in a roundabout way,” I
.bn 012.png
.pn +1
replied dreamily. Then quite abruptly, “You
didn’t know me until I was at Oxford, did you?”

“No.”

“I was sent to Eton when I was a sickly, timid
little chap of fourteen. I had had a lonely life
of it in New York. My mother was so afraid I
should have a good time like other boys, and
shout and play and talk with an American accent,
that she chained me to a priggish English tutor,
who took me for solemn walks in the park for
recreation. I was hardly any better off than the
pale-faced little idiots you see marching about
Rome and Palermo two by two, dressed up in
ridiculous uniforms of broadcloth, and carrying
canes–not so well off, for there are many of
them, and only one slovenly priest. But my
keeper had me all to himself. Think of it, I never
held a baseball in my little fist. Imagine that
kind of a youngster set down in the midst of half
a thousand lusty young English schoolboys, and
an American at that.”

“Poor little homesick boy,” she murmured.
“And then?”

“Just five years of being shunned and moping
and long solitary rows on the river, and
dreams bad for a boy of my years–just a long
stretch of that sort of thing, that was my life at
the public school.
.bn 013.png
.pn +1

“At Oxford it was pretty much the same. I
pulled through in a listless sort of fashion and
got my degree. But the habits of boyhood told
now. I found it harder than ever to get into
things. I found myself more and more the mere
spectator of life–not a happy existence, nor a
good foundation for an American to begin the
duties of life with.”

“I should think not,” said Jacqueline severely.
If she had pity for the lonely little boy, she had
no mercy for the man. “And so because you
idled through college and liked it, you came here
to Venice to idle away the rest of your life?”
she asked with some scorn.

“Well, it was hardly so deliberate as that,” I
said patiently. “No, I went back to America,
and for the first time came face to face with my
father. At least it was the first time that he
had taken the trouble to speak to me in a heart-to-heart
sort of way. You know my father well,
so I needn’t expatiate on his virtues.”

Jacqueline smiled. But no malice hovered on
her lips as on mine. American women are supposed
to demand much of their husbands and
fathers. But at least they respect the husbands
and fathers who toil that they may play. So
she answered primly:

“I have always found your father a most interesting
.bn 014.png
.pn +1
man, I know he loves you in his way.
That you have so little ambition is the bitter disappointment
of his life. He has often spoken of
you to me.”

“Yes, yes,” I said hurriedly, “no doubt he
loves me in his own fashion. But we hardly understand
each other. The morning after I landed
from England, after I had taken my degree, he
called me into his office and asked me without
any preliminaries what I thought I was fit for.
I told him that I really hadn’t any idea. He
thumped his great fist on his desk and roared:
‘So far, young man, your mother has had her
turn. She’s mammied you, and made a fool of
you with your English education and English
accent. Now it’s my turn. Go back to Germany.
Stay there two years and come back a chemist.
I want you to help me in the factory.’

“I never dreamed of opposing him. I was
rather relieved to get out of his presence. So I
took the check that he handed to me, and shook
him dutifully by the hand. ‘Good-by,’ he said,
‘and when I say a chemist, I mean a good chemist.
If you aren’t that, you needn’t bother to
come back at all.’ The next morning I engaged
passage for Bremen.”

“The rest I know about,” said Jacqueline
looking at her watch.
.bn 015.png
.pn +1

“I dare say, only I should like you to understand
it from my point of view. I went to Berlin.
My name was entered on the roll of students
of the university. I drank a lot of beer, but
I studied very little chemistry. At the end of
my two years’ probation, I began to think with
apprehension of my father’s parting words:
‘And a good chemist, or you needn’t trouble to
come back.’

“And then, one day, when I was quite at a
loss what to do, I received word that my mother
had died suddenly. She left me a small fortune.

“I dreaded more than ever to return to my
father. Why should I? I began to ask myself.
Why should I? echoed my one friend.

“This friend was a wizened, eccentric, boastful
little man, but with an undying enthusiasm
for the rare and the beautiful. He spoke cunning
words to entice me: ‘Your father’s idea of
a successful life is one of work and yet more
work–of tasks and habits that bind one more
and more inexorably as the years go on. This
is not success at all, but the direst failure. A
life made up of habits and tasks that safely
steer one through one’s existence, minute by minute,
is a life with all the excitement and keen delight
and ecstasy left out. To live such a life is
to be a machine and no man.
.bn 016.png
.pn +1

“‘Come,’ he said, ‘with me to Venice. I will
show you how to live. Why should you go back
to America and the hideous? There are millions
of fools to labor doggedly–to keep the world
a-going–why should you be dragged into the
ranks of the slaves to the lash? There are thousands
to agonize and strive, to create the beautiful–and
to fail, terribly. Why should you be
dragged into the ranks of those slaves to an ideal?
There are hundreds to make the world better.
Why should you be a slave to conscience? But
there are so few to make a fine art of living. Be
one of them. Enjoy perfectly. Enjoy wisely.
Life may be for you something so rare and beautiful
that the horrible and the vulgar shall not
exist for you.’ I listened to him. I came to
Venice. Here I am.”

“There is something rather fine about it all,”
said Jacqueline wistfully. “But there’s sophistry
somewhere. And it seems brutally selfish.”

“Sophistry! Selfish! How subtle the sophistry
and selfishness I alone can tell. Dear Jacqueline,
I had left one thing out of my calculations
in building this fool’s paradise.”

“And that?” Jacqueline looked troubled. I
know she pitied me.

“I had forgotten that one may love.”

I leaned over toward her. Regardless of
.bn 017.png
.pn +1
Pietro, who, I knew, was squinting through the
red and white striped awning, I took her hand.
“Dear Jacqueline, do you think that it is too
late for me to begin again?”

Jacqueline was silent. She withdrew her hand
gently. I had felt it tremble in mine.

“Do you see now that I am answering your
question?” I asked. “When I was in New York,
and knew at last that I should always love you, I
had to keep reminding myself that <em>this</em> was my
world. I had set before myself an ideal. I must
be faithful to it. So, now, when you are in Venice,
I have tried to remind myself just as strongly
that you come from the world of the penny steamboat
and factory–a workaday world–a relentless
world. In that world men tear and rend one
another for a name, for a position. Each one is
for himself, ruthless of others, unscrupulous
often. Each one strives madly for something
that is just out of his reach. That is the world
you come from. I have reminded myself of it
over and over. But it’s no use. I can’t keep
silent. I must speak. Jacqueline, I love you.”

She sat motionless. Her eyes looked out on
the lagoon. Then she clasped her knees, and
looked at me with a curious intentness. When
she did speak, it was so slowly, so decisively that
her words sounded like an inexorable fate.
.bn 018.png
.pn +1

“My dear Richard, you are an extraordinary
man. You are one of the rare specimens who
hold a perfectly impossible ideal. When you fail
to attain that ideal, you frankly abandon yourself
to materialism–a materialism that smothers
you. You have not even attempted to play
the man. It is incredible that you should deliberately
lay yourself down to loll on a flowery bed
of ease for three years. Your very last words
about my poor world show how great a gulf is
fixed between you and me. Yes, I am of that
world. I glory in it. But you sneer at the very
qualities you lack. That is so easy, and, forgive
me, so weak. You call my poor world ruthless.
But often ruthlessness, yes, and unscrupulousness
even, go with strength. The man I love must
have a touch of this relentlessness you despise.
Better that he be unscrupulous than weak. And
as for patience, surely to be greatly patient is to
be greatly strong. But you, my dear Dick, you
area piece of bric-à-brac, you and your ideals.
You should be under a glass case. You are too
<lang=fr><em>précieux</em></lang> for the struggle in the world you shrink
from. Return your love? Impossible. You
have done nothing to deserve it.”

I could not speak. She had told me the truth.
Presently she looked at me. Then she touched
my arm lightly.
.bn 019.png
.pn +1

“I have hurt you,” she pleaded.

“Well, why not?” I answered roughly. “It
is the truth. But, Jacqueline, is your answer
quite final? If I plunge into this struggle–if
I show you that I too can strive and achieve
things for the woman I love, if not for myself,
will you let me tell you again that I love
you?”

“Can the leopard change his spots?” she asked
lightly.

“That remains to be seen. Let me prove to
you that I am not merely the dilettante that you
see on the surface. If I have not cared to succeed
before, perhaps it was because there was
nothing or no one to work for. If I show you
that I really have those qualities that you demand
and think I lack, will you let me tell you again
that I love you?”

“What could you do to show that?” asked
Jacqueline softly.

“I could go back to New York to-morrow. I
could join my father in business.”

“To New York to-morrow!” she said in
dismay.

“Yes,” I cried joyously. I had caught the note
of dismay.

“But I dare not advise you to do that. I could
not take that responsibility unless I loved you.
.bn 020.png
.pn +1
I do not love you. But if you are not fitted for
business, you would surely fail.”

“Would you discourage me in the attempt to
do what you have condemned me for not doing?”
I asked with impatience.

“It may be that here in Venice is a task.”

“In Venice? Impossible.”

“You told me the other day that you had once
thought of writing up the legends of Venice.
You said they had really never been done well.
Why not attempt that?”

“Oh, that!” I exclaimed discontentedly.

“And why not?”

“It must be an entire change of life–of habits
and ambition and tastes. Why not attempt something
big while I am about it?”

“My dear Richard,” insisted Jacqueline gently,
“it makes no difference how obscure one’s
task is. It may be even a useless task, only one
must show patience and strength in the performance
of it.”

“Jacqueline, you are giving me hope.”

She held up her gloved hand, smiling.

“No, I give you no hope. Nor do I give you
reason to despair. I do not love you, now. I
could not love such a one as you. Whether I
could love you if you were different–if you had
ambition and stamina–I can not tell.”
.bn 021.png
.pn +1

“I shall yet make you love me, Jacqueline.”

Our eyes met for one instant, then hers fell
before my steady gaze.

“Will you please tell the gondolier to row
faster? I shall be late for luncheon, and I have
an appointment at three.”

“Then I sha’n’t see you this afternoon?”

“Perhaps. If you care to accompany my
aunt and myself on a little expedition.”

“I shall be delighted. And where?”

“To an old Venetian palace on the Grand
Canal. We are to inspect it from garret to basement.
A dealer in antiquities is to take us there.
He is to buy the contents of the palace as they
stand. You know my aunt, Mrs. Gordon, is never
so happy as when buying some useless piece of
bric-à-brac.”

“Beware of the dealer in bric-à-brac here in
Venice. He is a Jew, your dealer–be sure of
that.”

“Oh, no, he is not. Aunt and I know him well.
He is an American.”

“His name?”

“St. Hilary. He has an immense shop on
Fifth Avenue.”

“St. Hilary!” I exclaimed, “and he is here
in Venice!”

“Do you know him?”
.bn 022.png
.pn +1

“Why, this St. Hilary is the man I told you
of,” I answered slowly, “who first charmed me
into coming to Venice. He is responsible for my
wasting these past three years. I feel a grudge
against him for that. He owes me some reparation.
Yes; I shall be interested in seeing your
palace with St. Hilary as guide. When shall I
meet you?”

“Outside Florian’s, on the Piazza at three.
But you have not yet aroused your gondolier.”

I poked Pietro with my walking-stick. Pietro
flung away his cigarette and bent to his oar. The
gondola, like a thing of life, leaped joyously
toward the Molo.
.bn 023.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER II

.sp 2
My rooms were in a wonderful old palace in
the unfashionable quarter of the Giudecca.
From the windows, precisely opposite the Salute,
I had the finest view in Venice. That made them
worth while. But the principal charm of the
location for me lay in the fact that here the
ubiquitous tripper rarely puts foot.

At a quarter to three I boarded a penny steamer
from the Fondamenta della Croce, the broad
sunny quay in front of my palace, and crossed
over to the Molo. It was the first time in three
years that I had used this humble craft. The
penny steamer, be it understood, was a part of
the new <lang=fr><em>régime</em></lang>. It stood for hustle and democratic
haste, the qualities in which dear Jacqueline
had found me so sadly lacking.

It gave me an immense satisfaction–this little
voyage. I paid my soldo to the shabby, uniformed
conductor; I watched him uncurl the rope
from the post; I heard the steersman shout down
his hollow tube the directions to the engineer in
his cubby-hole below; I seated myself between
an unshaven priest and a frowsy old woman
.bn 024.png
.pn +1
with a basket of eels; and it all appealed to me
as fresh and interesting.

The world was very bright that afternoon.
The sky had never seemed so blue. There was
something for me to do–what, I did not know
precisely (for I had not taken Jacqueline’s suggestion
very seriously), but somewhere I should
find my task, and so win Jacqueline’s complete
love and regard. In the meanwhile I was to
see her.

I leaped ashore, the first of the passengers, and
walked briskly across the Piazzetta. I saw them
immediately at one of the little black tables outside
of Florian’s–St. Hilary in the center, and
Mrs. Gordon and Jacqueline on either side.
St. Hilary was talking–as usual.

He evinced no surprise at seeing me. That
was not his way. He did not even shake hands.
He merely saluted me with his rattan cane, and
continued to talk–as usual.

“Then it is the beauty of Venice that impresses
you both?” he was saying. “The beauty! I am
weary of the cry. Let me tell you that there
is something infinitely more appealing to one
than beauty in Venice, if one knows precisely how
to look for it and where.”

“And what is that?” asked Mrs. Gordon, as
St. Hilary paused.
.bn 025.png
.pn +1

“It is its mystery,” he said impressively.

“Its mystery!” repeated vaguely Jacqueline’s
aunt. “And why its mystery?”

“Listen. I wish you to understand. It is
night. You are quite alone–you and your gondolier.
And it is late–very late. All Venice is
asleep. You drift slowly down the Grand Canal.
You hear nothing but the weird cry, ‘<em>stai-li oh</em>,’
as a gondolier approaches a corner. Above are
the stars, and in the dark waters about you are
stars–a thousand of them–reflected in a thousand
rivulets. On this side and on that–dumb
as the dead–are the despoiled palaces. They
suffer in silence. They are desecrated. Their
glory is departed. Some of them are lodging-houses,
a glass-factory, a post-office, a shop of
cheap and false antiquities. But Pesaro and
Contarini once dwelt in them. Titian and Giorgione
adorned their walls. Within was the splendor
of the Renaissance–cloth of gold–priceless
tapestries–bronzes–pictures–treasures of
the East–of Constantinople, of far-off Tartary.
Everything of beauty in the whole world
found its way at some time within those barred
gates.

“But where is it now–all that treasure, that
beauty? Has every temple been ravaged? Has
the vandal prowled in the very holy of holies?
.bn 026.png
.pn +1
Are only the bare walls left? Only the very skeletons
of all that pride of the flesh? Or, somewhere,
hidden perhaps centuries ago–in some
dark cranny–in some secret chamber–is there
some forgotten masterpiece–some beauty of cunning
hand, some jewel patiently waiting for one
to pluck it from its obscurity? There must be.
I know there is. Do you hear? I say I <em>know</em>.
There, madame, you have for me the mystery of
Venice.”

“For you,” placidly replied Mrs. Gordon,
“simply because you are a dealer in antiquities.
But why is Venice in that regard more mysterious
than other great cities?”

I thought Mrs. Gordon right. St. Hilary’s
enthusiasm was far-fetched. The dapper little
man, with his black, snapping eyes, his face the
color of parchment, and lined as the palm of one’s
hand, agile as a puppet on strings, neat as a
tailor’s model, was in earnest, absurdly in earnest,
in this idle, quaint fancy of his.

“Perhaps so,” he sighed. “Say that it is the
passion of the collector that talks and not the
sober judgment of the dealer. And yet, and yet,
it is this hope that sends me to impossible places
in Persia, to Burma. Yes; it has brought me
now to Venice.”

“To Venice!” I cried, astonished. “You
.bn 027.png
.pn +1
allow yourself to be mastered by a whim, as
vague, as visionary as this?”

“My dear Hume, perhaps this whim, as you
call it, is not vague or visionary to me,” he replied
quietly.

“But,” I expostulated, “you have no proofs
of your treasure. Why is it not behind the glass
cases in St. Mark’s yonder? Why are not your
canvases in the museums? Why are not your
antiquities in the shops?”

He looked at me with a strangely thoughtful
expression.

“What we have never had we do not miss,”
he mused. “No one missed the Venus de Milo,
or the Frieze of the Parthenon, or the Kohinoor.
Yet we call them to-day three of the wonders of
the world.”

“Because there are but three of them,” I said
<pm corr 21.19 impatiently impatiently.> “I am afraid you must look far
and wide before you find the lucky fourth.”

“No doubt,” he said indifferently, “no doubt.”
And then with apparent irrelevance, “Now one
would not think that crowns were so easily
lost.”

“And have they been?” I asked curiously.

“Only the other day eight were found at one
digging, not far from Toledo. They had been
lost for a thousand years. There was a find for
.bn 028.png
.pn +1
you. Then the crown of the Emperor of Austria,
the holy crown, the <lang=it><em>szenta korona</em></lang>, has been
lost and found no less than three times. The
last time (not half a century ago) it disappeared
after the defeat of Kossuth. Some said it had
been taken to London; some, that it was broken
up and the jewels sold in Constantinople. But
for a few florins a peasant returned it as mysteriously
as it had disappeared. Foolish peasant!”

“Mr. St. Hilary,” expostulated Mrs. Gordon
severely, “you would not have had him do
otherwise?”

“I suppose not. But upon my word, sometimes
I think that one might as well go in for big
things as for little. There is the <em>Gnaga Boh</em>,
the Dragon Lord, the most perfect ruby in the
world. A half-witted creature, the widow of
King Theebaw, wears it. We are great friends,
that old hag and I, and I could have stolen it
from her a thousand times. Some day perhaps
she will give it to me. And that notorious Indian
prince, Gwaikor of Baroda, has half a dozen
stones of price. He, too, is a crony of mine.
Nothing would be easier than to steal one of
them.”

“My dear Mr. St. Hilary,” again interrupted
Mrs. Gordon, “surely you do not contemplate
burglary?”
.bn 029.png
.pn +1

“That is precisely the trouble,” he complained
mournfully, “I have a conscience. But findings
are certainly keepings.”

“Ah, but it must be so difficult to find one’s
findings,” said Jacqueline quaintly.

“Not always. Have you never heard how the
Hermes of Praxiteles was discovered?”

She shook her head.

“Pausanias, an old Greek historian, wrote of
that statue about a thousand years ago–how he
had seen it at Olympia. There was the passage
for all the world to read. He wrote precisely
what there was to dig for–precisely where one
was to dig. But did any one believe him? Not for
a thousand years. But when, after a thousand
years, a party of Germans made up their minds
that perhaps there was something in the story,
and dug in Olympia as he told them, there was
their Hermes waiting for them. You see one
may have information as to where lies one’s
treasure sometimes. But so few of us have
faith.”

“And have you your information as well as
your abundant faith, St. Hilary?” I inquired
with mock solicitude.

At this idle question, his heavily lidded eyes
opened wide. The pupils dilated. A challenge
flashed from their blue depths. I stared at him.
.bn 030.png
.pn +1
But almost immediately the heavy lids drooped
again.

“All this is extremely interesting, Mr. St.
Hilary,” said Jacqueline. “But is it not rather
wide from our Venetian palace? Why do we
wait?”

“Simply, my dear young lady, because the
owner happens to be of a religious turn of mind;
and at this moment, I believe, is confessing his
sins in San Marco’s yonder.”

“Who is the owner of the palace?” inquired
Mrs. Gordon. “And why does he wish to sell its
contents?”

“The owner is a duke, the Duca da Sestos, and
he wishes to sell because he is as impecunious
as the rest of his tribe.”

“A duke!” cried Mrs. Gordon. “How interesting!
And what kind of a duke is this gentleman?”

“Of the very flower of the Italian nobility. He
is a prince of good fellows, a dashing cavalier,
handsome as a young god, and twenty-six.”

“How <em>very</em> interesting,” repeated Mrs. Gordon,
and looked at Jacqueline.

The look troubled me. Jacqueline herself
seemed annoyed at it. She turned to St. Hilary.

“And have you any other treasures up your
sleeve, Mr. St. Hilary?”
.bn 031.png
.pn +1

“My dear young lady, shall I give you an inventory
of one collection I know about? I promise
to make all your mouths water.

“To begin with, there is a balas-ruby, known
as El Spigo, or the ear of corn. In the fifteenth
century it was valued at the enormous sum of
two hundred and fifty thousand ducats. Then
there is the jewel, El Lupo, the wolf. It is one
large diamond and three pearls. These two
stones would take the eye of the vulgar. But
imagine a beryl, twice as big as your thumb-nail,
and on it the portrait of the pope, Clement VII,
carved by none other than the great Cellini.”

“I will buy it at any price,” cried Jacqueline.

“Then,” continued St. Hilary, touching his
forefinger lightly, “there is a pale-red ruby. The
stone is indifferent. But it is a cameo, and the
likeness carved on it is that of Ludovico Il Moro,
the Duke of Milan. Domenico de’ Camei is the
artist, and they called him de’ Camei because he
was the greatest carver of cameos in the world.”

“That is mine,” said Mrs. Gordon, her eyes on
San Marco.

“To continue, there is a turquoise cameo, half
as large as the palm of your hand, and on it
is carved the Triumph of Augustus. Thirty
figures are on that stone. There is an Isis head
in malachite. The only other to compare with it
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
is in the Hermitage collection at St. Petersburg.
Few portraits of Beatrice d’Este exist. One of
them is carved on one of my stones, and is known
as a diamond portrait. Imagine a thin plate of
diamonds, evenly polished on both sides with
little facets on the edges. The diamonds make,
as it were, the glass frame of the portrait itself,
which is carved on lapis lazuli by the great Ambrosius
Caradossa.”

“That,” I interrupted, “must be mine.”

“I must not forget two curious poison-rings–one
with a sliding panel; the other, still more
dangerous, a lion with sharp claws–the claws
hollowed and communicating with a small poison-receptacle.
We must be careful how we finger
that ring when we take our treasure out of the
casket. Yes; and the casket itself is worth looking
at. By an ingenious system of clockwork,
the cover could not be opened in less than twelve
hours.”

“And where, where are all these treasures?”
demanded Mrs. Gordon, taking her eyes from
the cathedral for the moment.

“My dear lady, so far as I know, they are
here in Venice.”

“In Venice!” I cried.

“But, unfortunately, they disappeared nearly
five hundred years ago.”
.bn 033.png
.pn +1

There was a chorus of disappointment and
reproaches. Mrs. Gordon again impatiently
turned her attention to San Marco.

“And there is absolutely no clue to them?”
demanded Jacqueline.

“No clue, dear lady,” he murmured, spreading
wide his hands.

“But at least tell us whose the gems were?”
I asked.

“Ah, yes, that at least I can tell you. The gems
belonged to Beatrice d’Este, Duchess of Milan
and wife of Ludovico Il Moro. She pawned
them to the Doge of Venice to raise money for
her husband’s army.”

“And they have absolutely disappeared?” I
insisted.

“As if they had never existed. But they do
exist, and here in Venice. Think of it! In
Venice. And now, perhaps, my dear Hume, you
can understand the fascination of Venice for me.”
He sighed deeply.

“But why are you reminded of them so
particularly this afternoon?” I persisted curiously.

“Because we are going to see the box that is
said to have contained the casket.”

“In the palace of our duke?” asked Jacqueline’s
aunt.
.bn 034.png
.pn +1

St. Hilary bowed. “In the palace of our duke,
madame.”

“And how did it come there?” I asked in my
turn.

“It is said that the duke’s ancestor, a great
goldsmith in Venice––”

He ended his sentence abruptly. “Here comes
our duke,” he said.

I looked up. The dealer in antiquities had not
exaggerated his charms. He was tall. His figure
was as noble as his carriage. His hand rested
lightly on his sword-hilt. His bold eyes, of a
piercing blue, searched Jacqueline’s lovely face.
He had the all-conquering air of a young god.
His eyes wandered to mine. We looked steadily
at each other. We measured each other. Instinctively
I distrusted him.

St. Hilary made the introductions. “I have
asked my friends to go with me. I have not taken
too great a liberty?” he said in French.

“Not at all,” assured the duke. “I am only
sorry I have kept the ladies waiting. My launch
is waiting at the Molo. Shall we go at once?”
.bn 035.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER III

.sp 2
The Palazzo da Sestos was for many years
one of the sights of the Grand Canal. It is not
more beautiful than a score of others. Its sole
distinction lay in the fact that its faded green
shutters had been barred for something more
than half a century. Other palaces are closed
for a year–for ten years. But for fifty years no
butcher or baker boy had pulled the rusty bell-rope
at the little rear street–no gondola had
paused at its moss-grown steps. It had acquired
something of mystery. It was pointed out to the
tourist as inevitably as the glass-factory of Salviati.

But to-day the wide iron gates stood open.
The steam-launch swept between the palace steps
and the huge spiles, still proud in their very
decrepitude, crowned with the corno and adorned
with the da Sestos coat of arms. A servant, shaking
and bobbing his white old head, stood on the
marble steps that dipped down to the water.

We entered the echoing hall, and an indescribable
odor of damp mortar and dust made us
.bn 036.png
.pn +1
cough. Something scurried across the red and
white marble flags. A bat, blinded by the sudden
light, swirled about the hall in circles. Mrs.
Gordon shivered and clutched the duke’s arm.
Jacqueline gathered up her skirts carefully about
her. There was something unclean and uncanny
about the place.

The lofty hall ran through the palace. Beyond
was another iron gate, opening on the garden,
now a wild confusion of clambering grape-vines
and ivy and myrtle, that rioted up the crumbling
walls and choked and twined themselves about
the broken statuary and the yellow-stained well-curb.
On either side of the hall were stone
benches, and over each long seat the da Sestos
coat of arms again, the strange insignia of a protruding
hand clasping a huge key. Doors to the
right and left led to the Magazzini, or store-rooms,
in which, years ago, when Venice was the
mistress of the world in commerce, the <lang=it><em>nobili</em></lang>
stored their merchandise. St. Hilary, who had
unconsciously taken the lead, cast a disdainful
eye on the bare walls, and hurried to the stairway.

At the landing we paused. Two massively
carved doors faced us, the one opening on the
Sala Grande, the other to a long succession of
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
small reception-rooms, leading one out of the
other. Luigi tremblingly unlocked the doors of
the Sala, and threw them back with ceremony,
holding high above his head a flickering candle.

We stood without, peering into the darkness,
while the old man tottered across the vast room
and unbarred a shutter. The candle shone pale
in the light of day. He pushed open a window,
and a faint breeze touched our cheeks. One
breathed again. The sun streamed on the shining
floor of colored cement, gaily embedded
with little pieces of marble. I looked about me.

Great yellow sheets shrouded everything–the
tapestries, the pictures, the furniture. St. Hilary
tore the sheets down impatiently, Luigi looking
from master to dealer in troubled amazement
and indignation. At last the noble room stood
revealed. The little frivolous company of smartly
dressed men and women in flannels and muslins
seemed strangely like intruders in this great
apartment of faded magnificence and mournful
grandeur.

Flemish tapestries covered the vast expanse
of the walls. Throne-chairs in Genoese velvet
and brocade and stamped leather, each with the
inevitable arms in gold appliqué, were ranged
formally side by side. There was a magnificent
.bn 038.png
.pn +1
center-table, the heavy malachite top with its
mosaic center and Etruscan border, supported
by four elaborately carved winged goddesses.
There were antique Spanish and Italian cabinets
of tortoise-shell and ivory and ebony. At either
end of the room were two cavernous fireplaces,
the pilasters covered with exquisitely carved
cherubs and Raphaelesque scrolls. Vases of
verde; trousseau-chests of ebony; consol-tables
of bronze and ormulu; jewel-boxes of jasper and
lapis lazuli; clocks of bronze and Sienna marble;
marble busts; portières of silk and velvet; Florentine
mirrors; Venetian chandeliers of pink
and white and blue Venetian glass–all belonged
to the Venice of the Renaissance–to Venice in
its splendor.

“I suppose,” said the duke, looking about,
“this old room has had its chairs and tables
standing precisely as you see them for two hundred
years.”

“And, now,” said Mrs. Gordon reproachfully,
“you dare to despoil it? Were I you, it would
sadden me to sell at a price these dumb things to
that terrible dealer, darting about with his note-book
from treasure to treasure.”

“<lang=it><em>Per Baccho!</em></lang>” laughed the duke. “Why
should I have any sentiment for a place and for
things that are as strange to me as to you? They
.bn 039.png
.pn +1
have only recently become mine, and that by an
accident. If Luigi, now, were having his say, it
might be different, eh, old man?”

Luigi had been dogging the footsteps of the
dealer, replacing the coverings. He looked up
anxiously.

“What! his Excellency is to sell this palace?”
he faltered.

“All,” said the duke lightly, and ignored him.
“You must know, ladies, that the uncle, by whose
timely death I inherited the palace, was the last
Venetian of our name. He never set foot in this
palace, I am told. He lived abroad. The traditions
of these Venetians were not his. Nor are
they mine. I prefer to make traditions of my
own. I am from Turin. There, one is at least in
the world. There, one has ambitions for power
and glory.”

“With ambition you will arrive far,” said
Mrs. Gordon adoringly.

“But these Venetians, bah, I know them!” he
continued. “To gossip a little, to dawdle over
their silly newspapers at the Café Quadri–to
eat, to drink, to flirt–that is their dream of happiness.
They are rocked to sleep in their wonderful
gondolas. They drift on the smooth surface
of their sluggish canals out to the great sea
of oblivion. No. The silent waterways of this
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
melancholy, faded Venice are not exactly paths
of glory.”

“No,” said Jacqueline, and perhaps unconsciously
she looked at me.

I deserved the reproachful glance, no doubt. I
should have borne it meekly enough had not the
duke noticed it as well as myself. As he led the
way through the reception-rooms, he stared curiously
at me, and then at Jacqueline. He smiled.
My vague dislike became more definite.

These reception-rooms were monotonously
alike. Our interest began to flag. But the indefatigable
dealer of antiquities had seen enough
to awaken his enthusiasm. It was natural that
he should peer and pry. It was his business, I
suppose, to finger brocades, to try the springs of
chairs. But there was not a trousseau-chest
whose cover he did not lift, an armoire or cabinet
that he did not look within. I thought his
eagerness bordered almost on vulgarity, until I
remembered the box that held the da Sestos cabinet.
He was looking for it, of course.

At last he gave a little cry of satisfaction. He
turned to Mrs. Gordon. We had reached the last
of the <lang=it><em>camerini</em></lang>.

“You will remember, madame, I was telling
you an extraordinary story of the lost gems of
the Beatrice d’Este. It is true that I can not
.bn 041.png
.pn +1
show you the jewels. Nor the casket that contained
the jewels. But if it would interest you
to see the box that contained the casket, behold
it!”

He touched lightly with his cane a steel chest
that stood on a consol-table.

“And how are you to prove this?” asked Mrs.
Gordon, a little skeptically.

St. Hilary pointed to the cover. On it was
engraved: “<lang=la><em>Giovanni da Sestos fecit, 1525</em></lang>.”

“A da Sestos made the casket for the jewels!”
exclaimed Mrs. Gordon, glancing at the duke.

“It is a matter of history,” replied St. Hilary.

“Jewels!” cried the duke. “What is this
about a da Sestos making a casket for jewels?”

“I was amusing the ladies this afternoon with
the story of the mysterious disappearance of the
D’Este gems. As a matter of fact, they did not
merely disappear, Mrs. Gordon. They were
stolen, and stolen, if the legend be true, from one
of his Grace’s ancestors.”

“An ancestor of mine?” cried the duke. “Impossible.”

“He was a marvelous artist and clock-maker,”
returned St. Hilary coolly. “He was the first
Venetian of his name to become famous, though
I believe his end was rather tragic.”

“You seem to know a great deal about the
.bn 042.png
.pn +1
affairs of my family, Mr. St. Hilary. It is
strange that I have never heard of this ancestor
and his casket.”

“Not so strange,” replied the dealer, “seeing
that nearly five hundred years have passed since
then. As to the casket, it is a curiosity, and a
matter of history. There are few curiosities in
the world that escape the notice of us dealers in
antiquities. It is our business to know about
them.”

“Perhaps you will enlighten me as to this
strange story,” said the duke.

“Some day,” promised St. Hilary carelessly.
“Any day, in fact, that you have half an hour
to smoke a cigar with me at Florian’s.” Then he
turned to old Luigi, who was nervously fumbling
with his keys. “Have we seen everything? All
the rooms?”

The old man bowed. “Everything, signore.”

“That door, where does it lead?”

Luigi pressed down the handle and threw it
open.

“Good heavens, Mr. St. Hilary!” cried the
duke, “are you looking for the gems you have
been romancing about? Surely by this time you
have seen everything.”

The dealer paid little heed to the duke’s remonstrances.
He was fingering the tapestries. The
.bn 043.png
.pn +1
duke turned to the ladies with a gesture of annoyance.

“Shall we now leave this mad dealer to his
own devices? It would please me very much if
both of you would choose some souvenir of our
delightful afternoon. I am reluctant to let the
terrible American have everything. Shall we go
to the reception-rooms again? It is there that
we shall find the more interesting pieces of bric-à-brac.”

The duke and the ladies left the sala, old
Luigi leading the way. Myself his Grace had
ignored completely.

I turned listlessly to join St. Hilary. To my
astonishment he absolutely disappeared. I
walked the full length of the sala, quite mystified;
for I had observed only one exit.

As I stood in a dim corner of the vast apartment
one of the tapestries opposite shook. St.
Hilary emerged from behind it. He glanced
around the room an instant, and then, thinking
himself unseen, he walked rapidly into the reception-room
after the others.

My curiosity was thoroughly aroused. I lifted
the tapestry in my turn and felt along the wall
behind it.

<pm corr 37.25 Sudddenly Suddenly> this wall gave way to the pressure
of my hand. I had pushed open a door.
.bn 044.png
.pn +1

I found myself in a narrow chamber, hardly
larger than a coat-closet. I struck a match.
But before I could explore the interior, the tapestry
was lifted once more, and <pm corr 38.3 Lugi Luigi> appeared,
the lighted candle still in his hand.

“What is the signore doing in there?” he
demanded with an anxiety that seemed to me
rather uncalled for.

“I thought that you had shown all the apartments,
Luigi?”

“But his Excellency will be annoyed if he sees
you here,” persisted the old servant.

“Not at all,” said a cold voice, and the duke
entered, followed by the others.

“My dear Richard,” laughed Jacqueline, “this
is deliciously mysterious. So you have actually
discovered a hidden chamber?”

“Quite what one might expect in an old Venetian
palace,” added Mrs. Gordon. “Now if you
have found Mr. St. Hilary’s jewels, it will be
perfect.”

“I doubt if my friend Hume has wit enough
to have made the discovery that it is nothing but
a bare chamber,” cried the dealer, darting at me
a look of intense annoyance.

“Oh, it is no discovery of mine,” I said calmly.
“I have merely followed where St. Hilary led.”

“As a dealer in antiquities I am naturally interested
.bn 045.png
.pn +1
in curiosities, even in curious chambers.”

“All the same, your knowledge of my palace
is rather extraordinary–even for a dealer in
antiquities,” cried the duke.

St. Hilary took the lighted candle from the
servant.

“If you were a better Venetian,” he retorted,
“and were familiar with the archives of the
Frari, you would know that the Inquisition of
Venice had plans of every palace in the city. I
happen to have examined them. That is all.”

“But your Excellency will observe,” said old
Luigi unconcernedly, “that the room is quite
empty.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed the dealer, pushing us
gently without.

“No, not quite,” I said, looking at him keenly.
“What is this on the shelf here?”

“A clock!” exclaimed Jacqueline.
.bn 046.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IV

.sp 2
It stood on a stone shelf built out from the wall
as high as one could reach.

“Tut, tut, a broken-down clock,” cried St.
Hilary contemptuously. “Nothing could be
more useless and uninteresting,” and he blew out
the candle.

We trooped into the sala again.

“And now, Duke, having thoroughly explored
your house beautiful, even to the recesses of the
hidden and mysterious chamber, I’m quite prepared
to make you an offer at your convenience.”

“There is all the time in the world for that,
Mr. St. Hilary,” replied the duke impatiently.
“The ladies have not yet chosen their souvenirs.
What gift will you honor me by accepting?”
He turned to Jacqueline.

She hesitated, and looked at Mrs. Gordon.

“My dear Jacqueline,” encouraged her aunt,
“I am sure Mr. St. Hilary will not make his
offer much less for anything that you might
choose.”

“No,” said the dealer, making figures in his
note-book, “I have quite decided on the sum.
.bn 047.png
.pn +1
Let me recommend to your notice this faience
pitcher. I assure you it is rare. You can see for
yourself that it is beautiful.”

“If it is really of no value in itself,” said
Jacqueline, disregarding St. Hilary’s pitcher,
“there is nothing that appeals to me more than
that steel box. Mr. St. Hilary’s story has quite
touched my imagination.”

“It is already yours. And now what will
madame choose?”

“Could I examine that decrepit old clock in
the hidden room again? I happen to be making
a collection of clocks.”

“Then you can make no mistake about this
superb specimen in Sienna marble,” urged the
dealer.

“But, like Jacqueline,” smilingly protested
Mrs. Gordon, “I prefer something that has a
touch of mystery about it. And that old clock,
shut up in the darkness there, one knows not how
many years, ought to have a history.”

“But it is so very, very old,” cried old Luigi
deprecatingly. “It has not gone for two hundred
years.”

“That hardly makes it less interesting,” I said
dryly. “Let us see the clock by all means.” The
reluctance of both St. Hilary and Luigi had
struck me as being rather strange.
.bn 048.png
.pn +1

“Your Excellency surely does not mean to give
it away? It is an heirloom of the family,” expostulated
old Luigi obstinately.

“I have told you to bring it out,” commanded
the duke.

Very reluctantly the old man entered the little
chamber.

“It is too heavy,” he cried from within. “I
can not lift it.”

Duke da Sestos and myself went to his assistance.
Together we carried it to the sala and
placed it on the center-table. The slight jar set
a number of bells ringing in musical confusion.

Certainly it was unique–at least I had never
seen anything like it.

Imagine an oblong box of bronze, about as long
as one’s arm, and three-quarters as high. Around
three sides of this box ran a little platform, heavily
gilded. Immediately above this platform
were twelve doors, three at either end, and six at
the face. It was almost bare of ornament, except
that on the top had been three figures. The
heads and arms of all three were now broken off.

“Its very simplicity and ugliness interest
one,” cried Mrs. Gordon with enthusiasm. “And
those twelve doors certainly mean that it is an
automaton, do they not, Mr. St. Hilary? One
can imagine the stiff little figures that appear,
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
each at its hour, and at their respective doors–kings
with their crowns of gold, ginger-bread
Virgins, prelates with their miters, and armored
knights. Each figure in its hour does its devoirs,
I suppose, and disappears again.”

“At every shake of the table,” said Jacqueline,
“its bells clang angrily. You might think it was
offended at being disturbed after its long sleep of
two hundred years.”

“Yes,” confessed the duke, looking at the clock
thoughtfully, “it awakes a fantastic note that
will strike in the fancy of the most dull. Think
what stories of love and intrigue it has listened
to! What deeds of revenge and hate it has looked
down upon! At what hours of agony and ecstasy
have those bells not chimed? What death-knells
to hopes, what peals of love and happiness!”

Jacqueline had been turning the clock slowly
around. Suddenly she sank on her knees to examine
it more closely, and read aloud:

.pm start_poem
<lang=it>Se mi guardi con cura,
Se mi ascolti con attenzione,
E se, nell’ intendermi, tu Sei cosi acorto com’ io lo sono nel dirti–
T’ arridera la Fortuna.</lang>
.pm end_poem

“Will you translate it for me, please?”

“‘If you guard me carefully, if you listen to
me diligently, if you are as clever in understanding
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
me as I am in telling you, Fortune will smile
on you,’” translated the duke.

“The delicious braggart!” cried Mrs. Gordon
delightedly. “Now what do you think that brave
promise means, Mr. St. Hilary?”

“Pooh, pooh, madame! It promises too much
to mean anything. ‘Early to bed and early to
rise, makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise.’
‘Time is money’–there are a score of proverbs
as vague and as meaningless.”

“Oh, but you mustn’t cast any aspersions on
my dear clock. Perhaps Luigi can read the riddle
more cleverly. Do you know if there is any
legend connected with the clock?”

The old man hesitated.

“Come, come, speak up,” said the duke
roughly.

“Ah, yes, your Excellency,” replied the old
man. “But I implore you not to sell or give away
the clock. You will always regret it. Good luck
goes with the clock, your Excellency.”

“But the motto,” urged Mrs. Gordon. “Has it
any meaning?”

“Yes, yes, signora. It means that each hour
brings its own gift, if one can only understand.
One may never suffer, not hunger nor cold, not
poverty nor disappointment, if one can only read
the secret of each hour. For at every hour something
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
wonderful is told. And the clock is a charm
against the Evil One. My father told me, and his
father told him. Yes; we have guarded it carefully
in that quiet room. It has stood there as
long as I can remember. And now your Excellency
will give it away! Misfortune will come;
I know it.”

“Be still, imbecile. Madame, shall I have the
clock taken to my launch for you?”

“Oh, don’t deprive the old man of his charm
against the evil eye, aunt,” said Jacqueline
lightly, half pitying, half mocking the old servant’s
distress.

“I would remind Miss Quintard that it is I
who am deprived of the charm, if there is any,
and not Luigi,” laughed the duke.

“I would be the last one to bring you ill fortune,”
jested Mrs. Gordon. Then very slowly,
“But I intend to bring you good fortune, not to
take it away from you.”

“I am hoping precisely for that,” said the duke
gravely, and looked at Jacqueline.

Jacqueline was still kneeling before the clock.

“How I should like to know what you really
mean, foolish legend,” she said wistfully.

I leaned on the table and stooped toward her.

“If one were to run down that legend, it would
require patience and perseverance enough to satisfy
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
even you, would it not, Jacqueline?” I asked
lightly.

She smiled, but seeing that I was half in earnest,
became serious.

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I believe it would.”

“Then, Jacqueline, when I begin my legends
of Venice, shall I take up first the legend of this
old clock?”

“Do,” she said carelessly. “Aunt would
thank you, I know.”

I walked over to the window, and looked gloomily
without. I had hoped Jacqueline was in
earnest when she suggested that I should write
a book on the legends of Venice. But now that
I wished to take her desire seriously, she was
evidently inclined to laugh at me.

“Will you clap your hands for the servant in
my launch to come up?” asked the duke. “I
wish him to carry the clock down for Mrs. Gordon.”

“One moment, please,” said St. Hilary. “I
am collector enough to understand Mrs. Gordon’s
enthusiasm. But being a dealer as well as a collector,
I cannot allow this enthusiasm to interfere
with my pocket-book. I know, Mrs. Gordon,
you would never forgive me if I did not say that
my sneers at the value of the clock were the pretense
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
of the dealer who depreciates a thing that
he may get it the cheaper. The clock, madame, is
a valuable antique. The value of the things in
this palace will be lowered considerably if it is
not included in its contents.”

There was an awkward pause. The duke reddened
with anger.

“In that case,” said Mrs. Gordon, greatly embarrassed,
“I could not dream, of course––”

“Mr. St. Hilary,” said the duke coldly, “the
clock is not for sale to you at any price. Madame,
you will not offend me by refusing?”

Mrs. Gordon gazed at her niece in perplexity.

“You would find it rather difficult to carry it
about with you in Europe,” said Jacqueline
lamely.

“Yes, I am afraid I should,” declared Mrs.
Gordon with alacrity.

“If you will entrust the task to me, I shall be
charmed to have it packed and sent to America
for you,” volunteered St. Hilary. He seemed
eager to atone for his ill-timed remarks of a moment
before.

“But Mr. Hume tells me he is going to write a
book on the legends of Venice,” interrupted
Jacqueline. “A moment ago, aunt, he suggested
that he might be able to discover one about this
.bn 054.png
.pn +1
very clock, and I encouraged him to try. Why
not let Mr. Hume take care of it during our
travels?”

I professed my willingness joyfully, and
though it was evident that neither the duke nor
St. Hilary welcomed Jacqueline’s suggestion, the
clock was soon placed in a gondola I summoned.

To its chimes the fortunes of da Sestos and
myself were to dance merrily.
.bn 055.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER V

.sp 2
The day following I was strangely depressed.
I had run the gantlet of hope and doubt. Jacqueline’s
various moods had baffled me. And the
duke–frankly, I feared him. Jacqueline had so
obviously admired him. He stood for the very
qualities that I lacked. The glamour of his name,
the luxurious environment he scorned so vigorously,
his verve, and, above all, his alliance with
Mrs. Gordon, made him a formidable rival. For
that Mrs. Gordon, in some subtle way, had already
come to a vague understanding with him, I
did not doubt.

Two letters were on the tray that brought in
my morning coffee. One from Jacqueline; the
other from her brother. They called to me in
quite different directions. Jacqueline to her
side; the brother to his assistance in Rome.
The young fool was in trouble–trouble serious
enough to demand the assistance of one who had
influence with the authorities. I happened to fill
that position. I must go to his aid.

In Jacqueline’s letter I fancied I read a tenderness
that was altogether new and delightful.
.bn 056.png
.pn +1
It was no longer the reserved Jacqueline that
spoke. There was a delightful shyness, but
through the shyness spoke the woman who dared
to be bold for the man she loved.

She wished me to call at once. We would discuss
the book together. And she had invited
St. Hilary and myself to dinner that evening.
After I had left them yesterday he had hinted
at a wonderful story about the old clock. She
would make him talk. I should have copy for
one of my legends at least.

But I could not hesitate as to my destination.
For, in assisting her brother, I would be doing
Jacqueline a favor. Unfortunately, I could not
tell her why I had to leave Venice so peremptorily.
Neither she nor her aunt must know that
the youngster had made an ass of himself. I
wrote her merely that an affair of importance
had called me to Rome. I caught the first train
south.

Ten days passed before I sniffed once more
the pungent odor of the lagoons. There had been
complications and delays; and in his remorse the
boy had had a touch of Roman fever. I could
not leave him like that.

A letter from Jacqueline awaited me. It had
arrived only a day or two before. Her annoyance
at my sudden flight from Venice was obvious.
.bn 057.png
.pn +1

She regretted my absence at her dinner, but I
had not missed much. St. Hilary had refused to
talk. Perhaps there was really no legend, after
all. And, indeed, when one came to think over
the matter calmly, was it worth while attempting
to discover one? And was I really interested in
writing the book–that is, for its own sake? I
ought to be well assured of that. She was afraid
she would not see me again for the present. They
were to leave almost immediately for Bellagio.

I walked over to my window. I was bitterly
hurt and disappointed.

Venice was storm-swept. The Giudecca, deserted,
was lashed by wind and rain. The ships,
moored near the Salute, tossed and swayed at
their anchors. The goddess over the customs-house
spun about on her golden ball and vainly
tried to shield herself behind her flimsy veil.

The brightness and glory of Venice had vanished
as in a dream. The palaces, ivory and gold
in the sunlight, looked sodden and decayed in the
gloom, like an old woman deprived of her rouge-pot
and powder. Venice, in short, was a painting,
a masterpiece, if you wish, which the mischievous
fist of some mawkish infant had smeared and
smudged. The pigeons, the cafés, the gondolas–they
are the creatures of the sun. To-day the
pigeons were huddled under the Dome of the
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
Salute; the cafés deserted; the gondolas covered
with tarpaulin.

But as I looked, a gondola, rowed by two oarsmen,
emerged from the rain and fog. It was
headed directly for the landing outside my windows.
It touched the steps. The old <lang=it><em>gransieri</em></lang>,
shivering in an archway, pattered across the
quay with his hook. The passenger leaped
ashore. It was St. Hilary. And in this weather!

I drew the portière. I walked over to the mantel
and felt for a match to light the gas, for it
was growing late. As I struck it, half a dozen
visiting-cards caught my eye–eight, to be quite
precise. One of the eight was that of the Duke da
Sestos. What humble attraction had I for the
noble gentleman? The seven others bore the
name of St. Hilary. Seven calls in ten days! I
looked at them thoughtfully. And then–why, I
have no idea–I thought of the mysterious clock
that Mrs. Gordon had entrusted to my care, and
that I had left with a jeweler on the Piazza to
see if it was quite beyond repair. It would be
just as well to say nothing of that to the dealer.
I was curious to know precisely the fascination
that the old timepiece had for him.

“I was longing for some one to talk to. Just
returned from a little trip to Rome. What’s the
news?”
.bn 059.png
.pn +1

“Oh, I have just dropped in for a smoke.
Where’s your whisky? I am drenched through.
The felsa of that confounded gondola leaked.”

I caught the swift glance that took in every detail
of my room. I waved my hand to the side-board.

“Help yourself. I’ll join you presently, when
I have slipped into a bath-robe. You’ll find the
cigarettes by the whisky.”

I stepped into my room. I heard the fizz of the
siphon. I caught the fumes of his cigarette. I
heard the creak of a wicker-chair as he threw himself
into it. Then there was silence. I was about
to rejoin him, when I happened to look into my
mirror. St. Hilary was reflected in it, and he
was opening a coat-closet.

I whistled noisily, and put my eye to a crack in
the door. He was looking into a cabinet. Then
he pulled aside the portière that hid the deep recess
of the window. Another puzzled glance
about the room, and he sank noiselessly into the
chair. It was not difficult to put two and two
together. He was looking for Mrs. Gordon’s
clock. Well, he should satisfy himself thoroughly
that it was not on my premises. Then I
would wait for his next move. I entered my sitting-room,
still whistling.

“Just a word to my man, and I’m ready for
.bn 060.png
.pn +1
our smoke,” I said, and went into the sala. I
banged the door after me, but took pains to leave
it carefully ajar.

It was as I thought. He promptly slipped into
my bedroom. I waited considerately for him to
resume his seat before joining him.

“Well, indefatigable peerer and pryer for the
rare and odd, what is the news of the past ten
days?” I asked, reaching for the Scotch.

I knew he was watching me closely. The nouns
were a trifle suggestive.

“No news so far as I know. I have been buried
in the palazzo of the duke, making an inventory
of things. Interesting old palace, eh?”

I nodded, and blew a cloud of cigarette-smoke
into the air.

“Nice chap, the duke.”

I nodded again.

“Extremely gallant to the ladies.”

Again I nodded, but without much enthusiasm.

“Rather pretty compliment, his giving them
those souvenirs.”

“No one but an Italian would have thought
of it.”

“But I must say I was disgusted at the poor
taste of the ladies.”

“Why so?”

“My dear fellow, did you observe that bowl of
.bn 061.png
.pn +1
majolica? Or that superb cloisonné Kioto vase?
With carved ivories galore and a plaque of della
Robbia to choose from, and to pick out a silly
timepiece.”

“Ah, yes,” I remarked dryly, “you had an eye
on that clock yourself, hadn’t you?”

“Tut, tut, I have an eye on everything that is
useless and odd. By the way, she asked you to
keep it for her. I should like to have a look at it.
Trot it out, my boy.”

I gazed into St. Hilary’s innocent blue eyes, and
laughed quietly. “The other day, in Rome,” I
said slowly, “I met on the street a certain Captain
Villari. He’s as poor as the proverbial
mouse, and an acquaintance. He asked me to go
to the opera with him, I did not refuse, though
the invitation, coming from him, surprised me.
And the inevitable happened, of course. At the
very box-office, he discovered with cries of consternation
that he had left all his money in his
other uniform. Might he dare, would I think it
too presuming, if he asked me for the loan of ten
lire until to-morrow?

“I assured him with all the warmth in the
world that it would be a privilege, I put my hand
in my pocket to oblige him. <lang=it><em>Accidenti!</em></lang> Was
there ever such devilish luck! I had left my
money in my morning clothes!
.bn 062.png
.pn +1

“We looked at each other half a minute; then
we embraced with laughter. It was such an odd
coincidence. And so we went our separate ways,
quite good-naturedly. He knew I was lying. I
knew he had been lying. What do you think of
my story?”

“What has that story to do with an old timepiece?”
he blustered.

I leaned forward and tapped him on the
knee.

“Only this, my crafty dealer in antiquities.
You, as well as my captain, are too crafty by
half. You know the timepiece is not in these
rooms, just as well as I do myself.”

“I don’t understand you,” he fumed.

“No? Then what were you looking for a minute
or two ago? In that cabinet, behind the portière
there? By Jove, you had the impertinence
to lift the cover of my trunk in the bedroom.”

If I had expected him to show shame or confusion,
I was much mistaken. He stared at me
a moment. Then he threw back his head and
laughed.

“It wasn’t nice of me, I confess,” he said
coolly. “I should have acted with my customary
frankness, and have asked to see it first.”

“I think it would have been the better way.
As to this customary frankness of yours, you
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
guard that virtue so closely that I am a stranger
to it.”

“Very well, I’ll give you an instance of it.
Now that my cards are on the table, what have
you done with the clock?”

“Is that what you call being frank? I fail to
see those cards of yours on the table even now.
Play fair, St. Hilary.”

“I don’t understand you,” he said, and his
neck took on a purple tinge.

“You understand me perfectly. Just as my
captain did. And I have both eyes and ears.
Let me remind you, in the first place, you were
perfectly well aware that the clock was in the
palace. You looked for it deliberately, but
slyly. When I was curious in my turn, you
were hardly pleased. You pooh-poohed the
chamber. You made fun of the clock. You
blew out the candle promptly that no one might
examine it. When Mrs. Gordon insisted on
doing so, you vainly attempted to divert her
interest. As a last resort, you tried to make it
impossible for her to accept it by asserting that
it was an antique of great value. Don’t you
think that was in extremely bad taste?”

“My dear fellow, desperate cases require desperate
remedies.”

“Ah, then you confess that you were even desperately
.bn 064.png
.pn +1
anxious to have the clock? Why should
you deny it? There is nothing to be ashamed
of. Your eight calls have made me quite certain
of that, and the fact that you played the spy,
looking into my trunk just now.”

St. Hilary laughed, a little too boisterously.

“Good, good!” he cried. “I confess I didn’t
credit my dear dilettante with quite so observing
an eye. And if I were to confess that this
old clock interests me beyond belief, why should
you not satisfy my curiosity? Have you any
interest in it? An interest that conflicts with
mine, for instance?” and he looked at me curiously.

“It is quite possible,” I answered calmly.

“And this interest really conflicts with mine?”

“Why not?” I answered, smiling at him.

“Then I see no reason why I should not go
my way and you yours.” He picked up his hat
in high dudgeon and walked toward the door.

“Nor do I,” I answered, reaching for a cigar.
“However, let me remind you that I still have
the clock.”

It may seem strange and unreasonable that I
should have assumed so cautious a tone with the
dealer. My interest in the clock was simply that
I wished to write up the legend connected with
it, if legend there was. But I browbeat him
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
to punish him. He had not come to me frankly
and openly. He had spied on me and he had lied
to me. The penalty for that must be a full confession
as to why he attached such tremendous
importance to this clock.

He stood at the door. His eyes devoured my
face with that same searching glance that had so
startled me on the Piazza a few days before.

“Trust me, St. Hilary,” I said very quietly.
“I am not a man to betray a confidence–certainly
not the confidence of a friend like you.
And it is barely possible I may help you.”

“I have thought that, too,” he said, and hesitated.

“Then why not?”

“Because you are too much of the dilettante,
the dreamer,” he said angrily. “Bah, I need a
man like the Duke da Sestos–a man that has
grit and resource–who can even be unscrupulous
on occasion–yes, look into a friend’s trunk and
not feel too squeamish. I do need help; but
could you go to extreme ends with me patiently
and relentlessly? You hardly fill the bill,
Hume.”

He had quoted almost Jacqueline’s words.
He could have said nothing that would have
touched me so deeply. I answered him impetuously:
.bn 066.png
.pn +1

“St. Hilary, do you forget that it was you
who made me a dreamer? It is you who first
preached to me impossible ideals of beauty and
art. And when I failed to reach those ideals,
you laughed at me; you consoled me with sneers.
If I had not a soul to appreciate art and beauty,
there was still the sensuous Venice for me to enjoy.
And so, month by month, I have sunk into
the slough of materialism, until, at last, it is
almost too late for me to shake myself free.
First, the woman I love flaunts at the dilettante,
and then it is my friend.”

He stared at me; then, rising, he walked over
to where I sat and put his hand on my shoulder.

“What do you mean–that the woman you
love has flaunted you?”

I told him quite simply. He passed his hand
across his forehead.

“My dear, dear Hume,” he said affectionately,
“forgive me. Love is a thing dead and past
for me. I am in the sere leaf and brown. I had
forgotten that love might come into your life.
So your interest in the clock, after all, is simply
that you wish to write a legend about it?”

“Yes.”

“Listen to me. Hume. I have a quest that
demands patience, courage, faith, a will that is
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
relentless. If I shared it with you, could you
bring to it these qualities?”

“Try me,” I said firmly. “If it is a task that
demands action, and if it concerns this clock, I
am with you heart and soul.”

“It does concern the clock. But it is a hundred-to-one
shot, with the odds all against us.
If you fail, at least you will have your legend.
If you succeed, you will share equally with myself.
I have needed one for this quest in whose
honesty I could have absolute faith. I have
thought of you, but only to mistrust you. If I
trust you now, will you follow where I shall
lead?”

“Try me,” I said again.
.bn 068.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VI

.sp 2
He unbuttoned his frock-coat (I had never
seen him wear any garment less formal) and
took out of it a slender little volume in vellum
covers. He passed it to me in silence. I opened
it. It was a manuscript copy, roughly stitched
together. I recognized the handwriting as that
of St. Hilary.

“Well?” I asked curiously, returning it to
him.

“This is a crude translation of certain passages
in the Diary of Marius Sanudo, a Venetian
who lived about the beginning of the sixteenth
century. I made this translation in the
Royal Library at Vienna the other day. The
Diary is one of the rarest books in the world.
You are wide enough awake to listen to it for an
hour or two?”

“It concerns the clock?”

“It concerns the casket and the clock. You
may imagine these extracts as being divided into
two chapters. Chapter I–concerning the jewels
and the casket; Chapter II–the clock. My remarks
may be supposed to constitute a third
.bn 069.png
.pn +1
chapter. You have heard of Beatrice d’Este,
the Duchess of Milan and wife of Ludovico the
Moor?”

“Practically only what you have told me about
her. I know she lived during the latter part of
the fifteenth century.”

“Then I suppose you have never seen her portrait,
attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. It hangs
in the Ambrosiana Library at Milan, the second
room to the left as you enter; and I assure you
that it is well worth a little pilgrimage to Milan
to see. It is a profile of extraordinary charm–a
young girl of eighteen. It is difficult to imagine
this adorable child–for she was only twenty-two
when she died–as an ambassadress to the
most powerful court in Europe.

“Her husband, Ludovico, toward the last part
of his reign, was hard pressed by his foes. After
intrigues with two kings and a pope, he found
himself caught in the web of his own treachery.
He needed money to pay his allies. But his wonderful
Sala del Tesoro, with its oak chest of gold
and plate, was empty. Only the jewels were left.
I have already told you that this collection has
never since been equaled in artistic value.

“Now, if you are familiar with the financial
methods of these princes of the Renaissance, you
will know that in times of stress they resorted to
.bn 070.png
.pn +1
the rather vulgar expedient of simply putting
their jewels in pawn.

“Beatrice had conducted these delicate little
transactions at Venice for her husband more
than once. But now, before she had recourse to
this last desperate expedient, she was to plead
before the Signory, as his ambassadress, for help
both of money and men. If the Signory refused
to help Ludovico, her husband, she was to appeal
to the Doge; for the old man had already shown
the utmost regard for this high-spirited young
duchess. If, however, both Doge and Signory
failed her, she was to pawn the jewels with Albani,
the richest goldsmith in Venice.

“With this introduction, I will read you the
first extract from the Diary of Messer Sanudo:

“‘Of all the cities of the world, Venice is the
one where the greatest honor is paid to strangers.
But never was lord or lady received with greater
joy by the Signory in council. The Doge himself
conducted her to the seat of honor, and all
eyes were turned to her in admiration at her
divine beauty. She wore a gold brocade embroidered
with crimson doves, with a jeweled
feather in her cap, and a rope of pearls and diamonds
around her neck, to which the priceless
ruby, the most glorious stone, I think, man has
ever seen, called El Spigo, is fastened as pendant.
.bn 071.png
.pn +1

“‘All were amazed at the words of wisdom
and eloquence that fell from her childish lips.
She set forth her love for Venice, and piteously
implored our help against Milan’s foes. If it
were not possible for us to furnish men, at least
let her not return quite empty of hand to her
dear lord; for she would rather die than cause
him such grief and despair.

“‘The Signory and Doge listened to her courteously.
When she had ended, the Doge rose and
thanked her graciously for the words she had
spoken. He declared that nothing would give
the Signory greater joy than to do all she had
asked. But he reminded her that at this time
Venice was herself at war with Genoa, her hereditary
foe. Her own treasury was empty. There
was hardly to be found in all Venice a noble or
plebeian who had not loaned to the state money
out of his private fortune. When he had said
this, he descended from his dais again, and gently
taking her by the hand, so led her without,
the Signory being moved to admiration at her
dignity and grace.’”

“And of course they denied her petition, since
they were Venetians?”

“That goes without saying. Have I not said
that the jewels remain in Venice to this day? At
least the more glorious part of them.”
.bn 072.png
.pn +1

“I am impatient to hear of them.”

St. Hilary again read from the Diary of
Sanudo:

“‘This day the duchess went in state to see
the treasure of San Marco. As the bucentaur,
containing the Doge and one hundred and fifty
of her company, entered the Canale Grande, the
duchess confessed that never before had she beheld
the like. From the windows and the balconies,
hung with the richest tapestries, noble
ladies, glittering with gold chains and gems,
looked down on the sumptuous scene. It was the
finest sight of the whole world. And when they
landed at the Molo, they could hardly force their
way through the press, though the Doge himself
walked in front of them. Every one turned to
look at the magnificent jewels on the duchess.
On every side I heard, “This is the wife of
Signor Ludovico. Look what fine jewels she
wears! What splendid diamonds and rubies!”
And indeed every part of her vest whereon was
embroidered the two towers of the port of Genoa
was covered with them.

“‘And when they came out of the treasure-house,
I myself heard the Doge say, “It is but
a poor sight for you, dear lady, seeing that the
jewels which adorn you are as many and beautiful
as those we guard so carefully.” (Words
.bn 073.png
.pn +1
that had better have been left unsaid, for such
light words bring into discredit the glories of our
Venice.)

“‘The duchess answered boastingly (and who
indeed could blame her, seeing that the Doge
should not have said what he did?), “Do these
poor stones please your Excellency? To-morrow
I shall show you some gems that are indeed
wonderful.”

“‘And the Doge said sorrowfully, “I shall
await to-morrow with the greatest eagerness in
the world.”’”

St. Hilary laid the book face downward on his
knees.

“Now, it is a matter of record, Hume, that she
did show the stones to the Doge. Whether he fell
under the glamour of their beauty, or the charm
and witchery of the lovely ambassadress, does
not concern us. What does concern us is the fact
that the jewels were not locked up in the strong-box
of Albani the Jew, but of the Doge.”

“And the gems were never redeemed?” I interrupted.

“Never. Beatrice returned from her mission
only to die a few months later. Ludovico was
taken captive by Louis of France, who dragged
him to Lyons, where, like a wild beast, he perished
miserably in an iron cage.
.bn 074.png
.pn +1

“The next extract that I shall read from the
Diary of Sanudo is two years later. During
these two years his pages are full of the troubles
Venice was caused by her enemy Genoa, and the
straits to which she was put to raise funds.
Every citizen, we read, contributed his dole, however
humble. Except the Doge. Sanudo refers
again and again to the increasing distrust at this
strange negligence on the part of the chief officer
of the state. But we know that his fortune was
completely tied up in the jewels.”

“But why did he not pawn the jewels?”
I interrupted. “He must have known that
Beatrice was dead. They could never be redeemed.”

“Ah, that’s a pertinent question. Let our
Diarist answer it for you. This answer, I assure
you, will be of interest:

“‘This day, the fourteenth of November, in
the year of our blessed Lord fourteen hundred
and ninety-nine, I have heard that which is more
incredible than the travels of Messer Marco Polo
to the great Mogul of Tartary. Scarce an hour
has passed that I was told it by one of the
Signory himself; and I hasten to write it down,
lest any of its wonders escape me.

“‘All Venice knows that though our Doge is
the richest in the state, yet he alone hath contributed
.bn 075.png
.pn +1
to the treasury no proportion of the
greatness of his fortune. So that to-day, when
one after another in the Signory bemoaned the
lack of money, and the Doge sat silent and
neither made excuse nor offered aid, murmurs of
discontent and suspicion arose louder than any
that have yet been heard. At first the Doge
smiled bravely and affected to listen as heretofore.
But there were those who saw him tremble
for very fear. And presently, one bolder than
the rest, charged the Doge to his face with
treachery, in thus hiding his wealth in the time
of the state’s direst need. Still the Doge kept
silence, until murmurs and shouts arose on all
sides. Then he arose, half dead for fear, and
declared that he would explain all. And this is
the manner of his speaking:

“‘“My lords of the Signory, I beseech you to
have patience and listen to me; for that I am indeed
the most unfortunate of men you will see
when I have done speaking. The whole of my
wealth did I loan to Ludovico the Moor, at the
entreaty of his wife, when last she visited this
state two years ago. She promised that she
would redeem the gems before a year was passed.
But you, lords, know how she hath died and her
husband Ludovico lies imprisoned.

“‘“My lords, I had for the duchess the tenderness
.bn 076.png
.pn +1
of a father for a beloved daughter, and
thinking that I would give her pleasure, when
she should come again to redeem her jewels, I
hired Giovanni da Sestos, the goldsmith, whose
renown as an artist you all know, to make a
casket for the gems that should be as beautiful
as the very gems themselves.

“‘“It was to be so small that it could be carried
about. Yet it was to be so strong that the
most skilful thief would be baffled to break it
open. For when it was once closed, certain
springs ingeniously contrived by clockwork made
it impossible even for the man who possessed the
casket to open it till a day of twelve hours should
have passed.

“‘“I had made promise to Messer Giovanni
that he should receive three payments for his
task. Two payments I made to him; one, when
he undertook the work; another, that he might
buy the gems with which the cover was to be
richly adorned. The third payment I promised
to make when the casket should be given into my
hands.

“‘“But hardly had Giovanni finished his task
when Beatrice died. And, my lords of the Signory,
knowing now that the jewels could never
be redeemed, seeing that Ludovico is in prison
and his wife dead, I vowed that I would now
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
pawn them to Albani the Jew, that I might at
last help the state in her need.

“‘“But when Giovanni wrote to me to say
that the casket, which he had at last completed,
was more beautiful than anything like it since
the beginning of the world, I longed greatly to
see the jewels in the glorious box before they
should be out of my possession forever. And
now see how the heavy hand of God hath punished
me for my weakness.

“‘“For I had written to Giovanni to bring
to me the casket alone and at night. (For I did
not wish that any should know that I possessed
the gems till I had pawned them and until the
money should be paid into the treasury of the
state.) I bade him come at the hour of twelve
to my bed-chamber. I told him I should receive
him alone. I would let him in by a secret stairway.

“‘“And so, when all Venice slept, I admitted
him to my room, where there was none other
than myself, except the guard.

“‘“My lords of the Signory, never did I
dream of anything so rare and beautiful as that
casket. It seemed to me that I should die for
very desire of it. And at last I thought of a
cunning plan. Giovanni himself fell guilelessly
in with this plan. For he was eager to see
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
whether the gems would fit the little pockets that
he had made for each of the more costly. And
so we placed the gems in the pocket of the casket,
and then, as if by chance, I closed the cover,
which could not be opened for a whole day of
twelve hours. And now, I thought, Giovanni
must leave both casket and gems; for I had intended
to put him off with smooth promises,
saying that it was late, and that on the morrow
he should have his third payment of money.

“‘“But Giovanni clasped the casket in both
his hands and swore he would not leave it with
me until I should have paid him every ducat I
owed him. But the man’s anger was without
reason, for he knew I could not pay him the
money that he asked until I had first pawned the
jewels. And presently, when I attempted to
soothe him, he became as violent as a wild beast.
(And indeed the goldsmith da Sestos, though a
great artist, was always, I verily believe, half
mad.) The guard at last became afraid for my
life. For Giovanni swore that I had entrapped
him, and obstinately refused to leave the palace
until I should have paid him all.

“‘“Seeing now that nothing would move him
to reason, I made pretense that I could fetch from
the treasury the money he demanded; and leaving
the guard in my bed-chamber to keep watch
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
on the treasure, I left my room. But I was careful
to draw the bolts after me, so that it was
impossible that he should escape with the casket.

“‘“And indeed it was my purpose to call the
soldiers of the guard who kept watch at the foot
of the secret stairway, so that the insolent fellow
might be thrust without the palace, for he had
angered me greatly. I was without the chamber
but a few moments, but when I returned with
the guard and the doors were unbolted, a scene
of horror met my eyes.

“‘“The guard lay dead with a dagger in his
breast. Giovanni writhed on the floor in an
agony of pain, grievously wounded, though not
unto death. And the casket was gone.

“‘“My lords of the Signory, you will ask how
the casket was gone, seeing that the door had
been locked and the two men were both in my
bed-chamber. But the window, looking out on
the court of the Ducal Palace, was open. From
the balcony hung a rope strong enough to bear
the weight of a man.

“‘“It was many days before Giovanni came
to his senses. Then he told how two men had
been hid in the balcony. No sooner had I gone
from the chamber than they had set on him and
the guard. He accused me of hiding the men
in the balcony. (I much wonder that I did not
.bn 080.png
.pn +1
think of it. But, to my cost, I did not, and it is
a man deprived of wealth and honor that speaks
to you this day.)”

“‘The Signory heard the confession of the
Doge for the most part in silence (though some
there were that jeered). When he had finished,
he who had first accused the Doge of treachery
demanded what proof the senate might have of
this fable, seeing that no doubt the Doge had
caused the death of Giovanni. (And, indeed, it
had been a great mystery, his disappearance.)

“‘At that the Doge made a sign, and one
fetched Giovanni from the leads where he had
been languishing since the stealing of the gems.
But Giovanni protested with tears that far from
being guilty himself, it was the Doge who had
caused the gems to be taken, and nothing could
shake him from this belief. So that at last there
were many of the Signory who inclined to it.
And presently, when they had questioned him
closely, they decreed, partly because certain ones
believed him innocent of all evil-doing, and
partly because he was so incomparable an artist,
that he should no longer be held a prisoner under
the <lang=it><em>piombi</em></lang> of the Ducal Palace, but should return
to his own house. But lest by any chance
he had been guilty of the loss of the gems, he
was there to be held a prisoner; and guards were
.bn 081.png
.pn +1
appointed to have charge over him day and
night.

“‘This is the truly miraculous story of the
jewels of the Doge; but few in Venice believe
it. For what goldsmith could not be bribed to
swear to such a story? And as for the Doge, it
would seem that the state could find one better
fitted to wear the cap and ermine robe.’”

“And that is chapter one?” I asked, taking a
long breath.

“That is chapter one,” echoed St. Hilary.
.bn 082.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VII

.sp 2
“Shall we now proceed to chapter two?” he
asked presently. “May I assume that I have
awakened your interest?”

“You may certainly assume that.” I smiled
at his smug assurance.

“The next extract, then, from our Diarist is
two years later, December, 1501, to be precise.
In the meanwhile, it seems the Doge had regained
the confidence of the republic. At any
rate he had evidently not been removed from
office.

“‘This day was erected a tablet in the Frari
to Giovanni da Sestos, who died some six weeks
since. He was an incomparable artist in gold
and precious stones, the greatest that Venice has
known, but famous even beyond his just merits
as an artist by reason of the mystery of the wonderful
casket and the more wonderful gems.
And people are saying (though I myself have
not seen it) that he hath left a clock that is a
greater marvel than the lost casket itself, which
only the jeweler and his son (beside the Doge)
set eyes on before it was stolen. And certain
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
ones who have seen this clock (before it was
broken) declare that the clock of our Piazza,
though infinitely larger, is but a puerile thing
compared to it.

“‘When first imprisoned in his own house,
Giovanni utterly despaired, for he was watched
by spies day and night, and none might converse
with him without their being present. For days
he did not move, but sat moody and sullen, gazing
at nothing with his terrible, burning eyes.

“‘So he lived for many weeks. Then one day
he leaped to his feet and shouted aloud for his
tools. Though his adored casket had been stolen
from him, he swore he would make something
more marvelous than that before death came on
him. And because he was so great an artist, not
even the Doge dared to deprive Venice of any
wonder that he might make, though he had sworn
that Giovanni should never again breathe the
fresh air of the Piazza. So they gave to him his
tools, and for certain hours during the day his
son was permitted to aid him, since he suffered
no other to enter his workshop. Two years the
father and son labored at this clock until it was
quite finished.

“‘And when it was finished, Giovanni sent his
son to that Doge who had caused him to make
the casket and had since imprisoned him, beseeching
.bn 084.png
.pn +1
him to come to him with all haste, for
he had somewhat to say to him, and to show him.
The Doge went straightway to his house. For
he thought he was to hear some confession as to
the missing casket, since he believed steadfastly
that it was the goldsmith who had caused it to
be stolen, and no other.

“‘Giovanni met him with all ceremony, and,
taking him courteously by the hand, led him to
his workshop, where stood the wonderful clock.

“‘When the Doge saw this clock he was filled
with anger, for the three bronze figures reclining
about the face of the clock were hideous images
of Giovanni’s most bitter foes. Two of them
were a rival goldsmith and the jailer who had
fed him when he was a prisoner in the <lang=it><em>piombi</em></lang>.
But the third and most hideous of all was the
Doge himself, such a miracle of ugliness and
horror that to look on it would make a man
shudder. But because he wished to hear what
Giovanni had to say, the Doge spoke Giovanni
fair, and declared himself delighted with his ingenuity.
For they say (though, as I have written
before, neither have I seen the clock nor have
I known any that have) that at every hour a
door opened, and some story out of the history
of Venice was acted.

“‘And as each hour went by the Doge became
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
wearied of watching the antics of the clock as
the hours struck. But Giovanni compelled him
to be patient and besought him to see the antics
of the figures of all of the twelve hours. Between
each hour the Doge kept inquiring of the
goldsmith if he had anything to tell him. And
each time that the question was asked the goldsmith
laughed boisterously, and said, “Though
I did tell thee, thou hast not ears to hear.” This
answer he made several times, till at last the
Doge, seeing at last that he was being ridiculed,
arose in anger and cried: “For the last time,
Messer Giovanni, hast thou anything to say to
me?” And still the goldsmith answered with
jeers, “Though I told thee, thou hast not ears
to hear,” and would say no more.

“‘Then, because he had been answered in this
rude fashion many times, the Doge could no
longer restrain his passion. He lifted his staff,
and furiously smote off the three figures of the
clock, and in doing so the clock fell violently to
the earth, and it was broken in its insides, and
never more will it strike hour, so at least I am
told.

“‘When Giovanni saw that his marvelous
clock was broken, he raved like a madman, and
spat on the Doge, and belabored him with his
fists so that he was compelled to take flight from
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
the house. And as he fled, the goldsmith called
after him very bitterly: “Did I not say thou
wert a fool? For, though the casket were lost,
did I not make a greater marvel? But thou
canst not understand its divine beauty and wonder.
And now, by my oath, though I knew the
secret place of the casket, yet shouldst thou never
know, seeing that thou hast broken my clock.”

“‘As soon as the Doge reached the Ducal
Palace, he bade the captain of the inquisitorial
guard fetch Giovanni. He determined that he
would once more put him to extremest tortures,
for he remembered the words: “And now, by my
oath, though I knew the secret place of the casket,
yet shouldst thou never know.” But when
they reached the house of Giovanni they found
both his son and himself lying dead, side by side,
and by the look of their faces they saw that they
had taken poison. And now the mystery of the
casket will never be known. As for the clock, it
is said that it had an evil spirit, and no man
cares whether the Inquisition hath destroyed it
or hidden it.’”

St. Hilary closed the slim little book and gently
laid it on the table. During the latter part
of his recital I had risen from my seat and was
walking about the room. Now I sat at the table
opposite him, my hands stretched out limply before
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
me. I stared at him as the Guest must have
stared at the Ancient Mariner. For the Mariner’s
story was of things that were past and
done with. St. Hilary’s story was of things to
come.

When I spoke, it was almost in a whisper, as
if I were saying something too extravagant to
be spoken out loud.

“Then you believe, St. Hilary, that the clock
holds the secret? You believe that if you could
discover the secret you would have a clue to the
D’Este jewels? I see. Da Sestos was the thief,
and when he saw that he was never to feast his
eyes on the glorious fruit of his rascality, when
he knew he was being watched night and day,
he sank into the apathy of despair, until–until––”

I raised both my arms and stretched them
out as if I were groping for something.

“Until?” repeated St. Hilary mockingly.

“Before heaven, St. Hilary,” I cried, laughing
loudly, “are you and I the two maddest men
in Venice this evening?”

“On the contrary,” he answered carelessly,
flicking the ash of his cigarette daintily, “I begin
to think I have made no mistake in choosing
you for my companion. But the facts first. You
are ready for chapter three?”
.bn 088.png
.pn +1

“Your own theories about this extraordinary
mystery? Yes, yes.”

The little man threw himself back in my armchair,
a smirk of satisfaction on his wizened face.
There was something of the actor about St.
Hilary; he loved an appreciative audience, and
he was determined to make the most of the present
one.
.bn 089.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VIII

.sp 2
“Did you see the London Times of–let me
see–I believe it was the day before yesterday?”
asked St. Hilary presently.

I shook my head. The question was apparently
quite irrelevant, but I was accustomed to
his sudden and startling changes of front in the
discussion of any question.

“There was a remarkable robbery mentioned
in that issue. A Bond Street jeweler appealed
to his creditors for an extension of time in which
to pay his debts. When he was denied that, he
warned them that he should on a certain day go
into bankruptcy. The night before he was to
declare himself a bankrupt, however, when he
was in his shop very late at night, puzzling out
his accounts, he was attacked by thieves, and
after being bound and gagged, his safe was
blown open and rifled.”

“A very ordinary robbery,” I commented.

“Yes. But the thief was his confidential
clerk.”

“Who else should know so well the combination
of the safe?” I asked indifferently.
.bn 090.png
.pn +1

“If you would only be a little more patient,
Hume, you would not esteem my words so
lightly. There is generally some intention behind
them. As I was saying, he was robbed by
his own clerk, but the extraordinary feature of
the case is that the confidential clerk robbed the
master with the master’s consent and at his instigation.
Substitute the son for the clerk, and
you have a case of history repeating itself.”

“Then the Doge was right. Da Sestos was
the thief?”

“Consider for a moment the character of this
Messer Giovanni. He is an artist, but an artist
eccentric to the verge of madness. Sanudo
again and again refers to it. Granting, then,
that he is mad, in what form will this madness
manifest itself? Essentially in the very traits
and qualities that make up the artistic temperament.
These traits will be developed abnormally.
They will be pushed just over the narrow
borderland. How would you define the
artistic temperament, Hume?”

“Answering at random, I suppose the distinguishing
traits of Giovanni’s mind would be love
for his work, irrespective of reward or gain,
pride in it, patient thought, boldness in conceiving
the idea, and skill in the working out of
detail.”
.bn 091.png
.pn +1

“Excellent. These are the traits of the sane
artist. Now develop them, exaggerate them,
make them abnormal. To take our goldsmith:

“For nearly two years he had been working
on this casket. It is a masterpiece. It is his
<lang=fr><em>chef d’[oe]uvre</em></lang>. He has never made anything
quite so wonderful. Any artist is reluctant to
give up his handiwork. But Giovanni has not
merely the egotism of the artist; his is the egotism
of the madman. He can not bear the
thought of giving up the casket. He longs to
keep it for himself. He at last decides to do so.
But without the jewels it is but a meaningless
thing. It is a mere box. With them, it is one
of the wonders of the world. This longing for
the stones becomes at last insupportable. He
must have them for himself, and at any cost.
For, remember, he is not a common thief. If
the jewels were simply precious jewels, however
priceless, they might not have tempted him. But
a ring of Cellini’s, a cameo of Domenico’s, a
carved gem of Caradossa, they tortured him,
they tempted him, as they tempt me, as they torture
me.”

“And when once he has determined to possess
these jewels, his cunning, his capacity for detail,
his patience, all the qualities of the artist, serve
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
him now as the thief–is that the idea?” I interrupted.

St. Hilary nodded affirmatively and continued:

“The Doge unconsciously furthers his plans
by his intense fear lest the fact that he possesses
the jewels be made known. Only da Sestos, his
son, and the Doge, indeed, knew the gems were
in Venice. He has been told the very room in
which the Doge is to receive from him the wonderful
casket. He has thoroughly reconnoitered
the ground. He knows that this bed-chamber of
the Doge looks out on a court, which, in the dead
of night, will surely be quite deserted. And so,
with a coil of rope about his waist and a dagger
beneath his blouse, he keeps the appointment.

“The guard, no doubt, was an unpleasant surprise.
He did not count on him. But, after all,
he has the advantage, for the guard has no suspicion
of treachery.

“And so, in due time, he picks his quarrel.
He has planned that carefully long ago. The
Doge had written him that he can not make the
last payment until he has disposed of some of
the gems. Da Sestos had professed himself
quite willing to wait.

“But now, when once the jewels are in the
box, when once the cover is closed and it can not
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
be opened for twelve hours, he quite unexpectedly
demands this last payment.

“The Doge indignantly reminds him that he
had confessed himself willing to wait indefinitely.
But he is obstinate. He refuses to leave
the Ducal Palace without his just wage. If that
is not forthcoming, he takes the casket with him.
The Doge at last (as da Sestos has foreseen) is
compelled to leave the room, under the pretense
of getting the money. But, as he himself confessed
to the Signory, it is really to summon the
guard.

“Hardly has the cautious Doge drawn the
bolts after him, before the dagger of the mad
goldsmith has done its dread work. The rope is
uncurled in the twinkling of an eye. It is lowered
over the balcony, and to it is attached the
casket and its precious contents. Below waits
the confederate.”

“And this confederate?” I asked breathlessly.

“Again the dagger is lifted,” continued St.
Hilary, ignoring my question. “This time it is
against himself. It is worth a little pain, this
glorious plunder.

“And so his plan succeeds. The jewels are
his. After a few short weeks he will enjoy the
reward of his cunning.

“But, unfortunately, suspicion is aroused in
.bn 094.png
.pn +1
the Doge’s breast. For the old man, as we know,
was not so guileless a fool as the jeweler thought
him. Thief or no thief, da Sestos is imprisoned–at
first in a dungeon, with tortures, then in his
own house. He could stand the tortures. He
could endure the awful heat and thirst under the
leads of the Ducal Palace. But slowly came the
knowledge, the certainty, that he was imprisoned,
not for a month, a year, but for a lifetime.
The vengeance of the Doge was implacable.

“Then if he must perish, was the secret of the
casket to be sealed on his lips forever? The
egotism of the madman made that thought intolerable.
Then must he confess? Is his enemy
to triumph at last? That thought was equally
impossible. But, before he dies, he will indeed
tell where the casket is hidden. Even after his
death the secret shall be told. It shall be told
daily, hourly; but so cunningly that though all
the world listen, it shall not understand.”

“But the confederate?” I interrupted again.

“It was his son, of course. He knew. He
had helped to make the casket. He had helped
to purloin it, and he it was who had hidden it.
But not even to his faithful son would the mad
jeweler leave the jewels. His cunning plan had
become infinitely dear to him; and because this
son knew, he must be sacrificed. So that after
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
he had worked side by side with his father on
the clock, and had returned from his last errand
in summoning the Doge, it was only to meet
death at last. For we can not doubt that the
father poisoned his son as well as himself.
And so the hiding-place of the casket and the
jewels is hidden in the clock for no man to guess
unless he be such a man as da Sestos–one who
has something of the very madness of desire and
cunning that possessed the goldsmith.”

“Unless–unless that son played the father
false! There, there is the doubt on which your
ingenious fabric totters!” I cried. I felt myself
grow pale at the thought.

“You fool,” he answered violently, “do you
think I have not thought of that? But one never
has a certainty in this world. One must take
something on trust. And, by heaven, I am staking
all on that son’s loyalty to his mad father.”

He sat in my armchair, huddled up, his face
very pale and haggard in the dim candle-light.
But his eyes were burning like those of the jeweler
Giovanni. Then he roused himself and began
to walk slowly about the room. At last, in
the most commonplace tone in the world, he
asked:

“Do you know anything of automaton
clocks?”
.bn 096.png
.pn +1

“Nothing, except that they do extraordinary
things.”

“Things most extraordinary. You have never
heard perhaps of the clock made by Le Denz?”

I shook my head.

“Really? That was a <lang=fr><em>chef d’[oe]uvre</em></lang> of the
bizarre and wonderful. An automaton child
wrote everything that was dictated to it–everything.”

“Impossible!”

“I am telling you facts, my dear fellow, that
you may verify for yourself in any cyclopedia.
Then there was a man called Vancouver, who
amused himself making a clock whose figures at
certain hours played on the <lang=fr><em>tambour de flacque</em></lang>–droll,
very droll, that.”

“An affair like that I saw once at Maskelyne’s,
I suppose,” I said with assumed indifference.
“I remember it was an automaton
figure called Psyche, a whist-player. I played
a game with her myself one dull afternoon.”

“Tut, tut,” exclaimed St. Hilary irritably, “I
am not speaking of the tricks of the music-halls.
There’s the chess-player, for that matter, but all
the world knows that a human being is concealed
inside of those clumsy toys. I am speaking of
veritable automatons, such as the clock you are
to show me presently. Then there was a crazy
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
genius who made an automaton that would lull
him to sleep with an air as gentle as spring
zephyrs, and awaken him with a crashing march.
There are automatons that sing and dance and
talk without number. And one clock-maker
wrote a book of instructions for keeping the
mechanism of his clock in order after his death.”

“All this, I take it,” I said, lighting my cigar,
which had repeatedly gone out, “is apropos of
our clock. At every hour, as old Luigi said, it
tells its secret.”

“That is it,” replied St. Hilary. “And when
you and I, Hume, shall have mastered those
twelve secrets, we shall know where our jewels
are hidden. And now, have you still curiosity
to know whether this is a legend or a fact?”

“Yes.”

“Then you will help me to look for it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We may fail.” He looked at me
keenly.

“Of course.”

“I like your monosyllables. I believe you are
really in earnest.”

“Yes; I am in earnest.”

“Good again. Then we pool our interests.
If we are successful, we share alike. Is that
fair?”
.bn 098.png
.pn +1

“It is more than fair.”

“That’s settled then. And now let us have a
look at your clock.”

“Marruchi, the clock-maker on the Piazza,
has it. I left it with him to see if it could be
repaired.”

He settled himself in the armchair, and pulled
a rug over his knees.

“Marruchi, my boy, will be able to do nothing
with it. It is a job above his caliber. And
now to sleep, to sleep. You and I have a long
journey ahead of us to-morrow.”

“A journey? Where?”

“I shall be off to Amsterdam; you, to St.
Petersburg. Good night.”

“St. Petersburg?” I demanded stormily.
“St. Petersburg! Why the devil St. Petersburg?”

But St. Hilary was already asleep–or pretended
to be.
.bn 099.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IX

.sp 2
The sun was just tipping the dome of the
Salute as I fell asleep in my chair. My compact
with St. Hilary promised great things. It
meant action–a fascinating clue to follow,
whether it led us to the jewels of the Doge or
not. And if this dry chronicle of the past should
prove to be no colorless legend, but a living fact,
palpitating with human interest, I should have
material for a book indeed. A legend of the
Renaissance reincarnated in the twentieth century–that
must appeal to Jacqueline no less
than to me. Besides, the solving of this mystery,
if solution there were, or the proving it to
be but an empty fable, would certainly demand
those qualities she believed I lacked so sadly.
In everything this quest must be to my advantage.

It was eight o’clock before I could get St.
Hilary into a gondola. As we were rowed rapidly
to the Molo, an indescribable elation of
spirits buoyed me up. Three years had slipped
from my shoulders–three years of inertia and
weariness. I was happy, and I did not play the
fool and analyze too deeply my happiness.
.bn 100.png
.pn +1

Perhaps the warm, delicious breeze that came
in puffs, laden with the scent of oleanders and
roses from the royal gardens, had its influence;
and the deep-blue sky, with the pearly clouds
drifting slowly over San Giorgios, and the glorious
sun, flashing on every tip and spire, and
reflected silver-gray and rose-colored in the millions
of little waves that danced and sparkled in
a very ecstasy of color. For the rain had ceased.
The sullen clouds were gone; the muddy streams;
the discolored damp stones. Venice was again
the enchanted city of fairy architecture, floating
in the intangible air.

One would have thought it difficult to believe
this wonderful story in the full light of day, on
the Piazza here, flooded with sun, with the gondoliers
smoking and breaking out into snatches
of song, with the tourists already astir, and the
guides from San Marco’s already on the alert
for them. Last night in my chambers, with the
curtains drawn and the lights of Venice shining
mystically in the distance, there might have been
an excuse for one’s imagination getting a little
the better of one. But with the morning should
have come sober skepticism. I can only say that
there were two reasons that forbade that: one
that I wished to believe; the other, that St. Hilary
did believe.
.bn 101.png
.pn +1

A dozen steps on the Piazzetta, and we saw
that Marruchi was not yet opened, so we strolled
toward Florian’s for our morning coffee. As we
passed under the Arcade, St. Hilary paused at
a bookseller’s shop beneath the Libreria Vecchia.
I noticed carelessly in passing that the window
was filled with copies of a book just published.

“Have you looked into that book yet?” asked
St. Hilary, as he bowed to the bookseller within.

“No,” I answered, taking my seat at one of
the round tables. “I did not even read its
title.”

“It is called Annali dell’ Inquisizione in
Venezia. It was published about a month ago.
Organia and Rosen have had it in their windows
for a fortnight at least.”

“I have no doubt that that fact has some pertinency,”
I said irritably. “But before you explain
just in what way, suppose you answer a
few questions that naturally occurred to me
while you were asleep in my chair last night.”

“Well?”

“Why the deuce do you want me to go to St.
Petersburg? Why do you intend going to Amsterdam?
How did you come to know about the
Diary of Sanudo? How did you guess that the
clock was in the da Sestos palace? Or did you
not guess? Surely we are not the first to attempt
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
to solve the secret of the hours? And even if no
one has yet attempted it (and that seems incredible),
is it not possible that the clock may be
beyond repair, so that we can not fathom the
significance of the automata, if there be any
significance? And, lastly, how do you know that
you have <em>the</em> clock?”

“If you had read that book in the shop there,
some of your questions might have been answered,”
retorted St. Hilary placidly.

I held the coffee-pot suspended in mid-air.
“It mentions the clock?”

“It does.”

“Then it’s there for all the world to read–the
duke, for instance!”

The thought was rather startling.

“I suppose so. Had I known before I saw
you last night that you were to be my criminal
partner in pursuit of the casket and the gems,
I should have brought that book as well as the
Diary which I happened to have in my pocket.
As it is, you might just step over to Rosen’s
and buy a copy. You will find it an amusing
book during your long journey to St. Petersburg.”

I looked at him with some annoyance.

“You take so much for granted,” I remonstrated.
“I shall need some persuasion. You
.bn 103.png
.pn +1
know, I suppose, that it’s quite necessary for me
to get a passport to travel in Russia. And as
to our criminal pursuit, I take it that findings
are keepings.”

“Very true,” he answered, looking at me
cynically. “Beatrice, who wore some of our
gems when she went into that cathedral over
there, is dust these four hundred years and more.
The line of the D’Estes and Sforzas is extinct.
There is not a man or woman in Venice or Italy
who may boast that a drop of the Doge’s blood
runs in their veins. Legally, I suppose, the
state––”

“Oh, the state!” I sniffed contemptuously.
“I don’t mind putting my claims against the
state!”

“Brave man! But let me remind you, my
squeamish friend, that it may be necessary for
you and me to use the jimmy before we get possession
of those gems. Do you think we shall
find them on the pavement? Hardly! They are
hidden in one of these hundreds of palaces, and
they will not be given up for the asking.”

“I suppose not,” I admitted reluctantly.
“All the same, it has an ugly sound, the word
criminal.”

“I warned you that this was no task for the
dilettante.”
.bn 104.png
.pn +1

“Yes, yes, I know,” I replied hastily. “But
I am going to show you that I can be a bit unscrupulous,
as well as you, on occasions.”

“That’s better,” replied he, grinning at me.
“Now about that book. As I said, it mentions
da Sestos and his clock. But the Inquisition of
Venice, I need not remind you, concerned itself
not so much with the religious conscience of the
individual as with affairs of the state. It is da
Sestos, the criminal, who comes into this book;
and only incidentally, da Sestos, the atheist, who
made a clock that was inhabited by an evil
spirit.”

“And the story of Sanudo is substantiated?”

“Fairly well. And in this book we learn what
became of the clock after his death. It was forfeited
by the Inquisition as a thing unclean. It
was hidden away in the Ducal Palace for nearly
two hundred years.”

“And afterward?”

“In a long foot-note the editor of the Annals
tells us that at the entry of Napoleon it was
looted by a captain of artillery, who afterward
sold it to a dealer in Paris. It remained in the
shop of the dealer for nearly half a century,
when a learned antiquarian, who was writing an
elaborate monograph on automaton clocks, came
across it. This antiquarian, our editor tells us,
.bn 105.png
.pn +1
bought the clock and studied it. How it came
into the possession of the uncle of the present
Duke da Sestos is not known. This uncle, as
the duke himself told us the other day, lived in
Paris. He recognized the timepiece as that made
by his remote ancestor nearly four hundred years
ago.”

“Recognized it? But how?”

“Nothing could be easier. In the first place,
the name of the maker is on every clock. Then
he may have been familiar with the monograph
of the antiquarian. Or the antiquarian may
himself have brought the clock to the attention
of the duke. It is even possible that, as a
Venetian, he may have read the Diary of
Sanudo. At any rate, he sent the clock back
to Venice.”

“Did he guess the significance of the automata,
do you suppose?”

“It seems probable that he did,” replied St.
Hilary thoughtfully. “Otherwise, why should
the clock have been hidden in the secret chamber?
It is likely that he told the father of old
Luigi to guard it carefully.”

“And does the editor himself hint at the
automata’s having any significance?” I asked,
alarmed.

“Luckily not. He dismisses the whole subject
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
as a myth, a mere superstition of the middle
ages.”

“All the same,” I said, “if we could get hold
of a copy of that monograph we might have a
hint or two.”

“Very true,” quietly answered the dealer.
“That is why you are going to St. Petersburg.
The monograph is in the Imperial Library.
There is only one copy known to be extant, our
editor assures me. Useful man, our editor.”

“Very,” and I laughed shortly. “But what
if the duke gets wind of this precious legend,
and feels curious enough to try his hand at solving
the riddle? If, for instance, he asks Mrs.
Gordon for his clock again, we shall have a rival
contestant for honors in mysteries.”

“That is why we have no time to lose. Ah,
the shutters of the clock-maker are down. At
last we can examine your clock, and we shall be
lucky if he hasn’t ruined it,” grumbled St. Hilary.
He lifted the awning of the Arcade, and
we stepped out into the glare of the Piazza.

Marruchi met me with apologies. No; he had
not attempted to repair the clock. He had not
even taken it to pieces. The mechanism was too
intricate. In fact, he knew of but one clock-maker
in the world to whom it might safely be
entrusted.
.bn 107.png
.pn +1

“And he lives at Amsterdam,” concluded St.
Hilary complacently. “And now, perhaps, you
understand, Hume, why it is necessary for one
of us to go to Amsterdam?”

I hesitated. I remembered how he had attempted
to obtain possession of the clock by
subterfuge. How could I be sure that his sending
me off to St. Petersburg was not a ruse to
get me conveniently out of the way? Meanwhile
he would have the clock, and when he had mastered
its secret, he could return it to me with the
assurance that it was but a myth after all.
“Why should I not go to Amsterdam, and you
to St. Petersburg?” That was the question that
I might very pertinently have asked him. But
I did not. I had promised to trust him. I trusted
him now.

“Can you catch the afternoon express, Hume?
It leaves at three-thirty and makes connections
for St. Petersburg.”

“I suppose so,” I admitted reluctantly,
“though I hardly relish our rushing off to the
ends of the earth in this way.”

“Oh, you of little faith,” he cried testily. “If
you are really going into this affair heart and
soul with me, you will need a great deal more
patience than a journey to St. Petersburg involves.
As to my going to Amsterdam, you
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
heard Marruchi say there is just one clock-maker
in the world clever enough to take our clock to
pieces and put it together again without bungling.”

“Very well,” I assented soberly, and led the
way to the Bureau Internationale des Wagon-lits
to secure my sleeping-berth. But I must say
St. Hilary’s characterization of me was justified.
I had faith enough to be curious about the clock
here in Venice. But long and tedious journeys
to Amsterdam and St. Petersburg–that was
quite another matter.
.bn 109.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER X

.sp 2
St. Hilary had given me a letter of introduction
to the director of the Imperial Library.
Heaven knows where he had met him, but he
seemed to know half the celebrities in Europe.
I presented it in person. I have always found
it useful to be referred–if one is to be referred
at all–downward, rather than upward. One is
more apt to strike a higher level of officialdom,
and that means a more intelligent and enthusiastic
service. In this case I was not referred
downward at all. The director himself made
inquiries for the precious volume. He returned
in half an hour with apologies. The book was in
use. To-morrow, no doubt, it would be at my
disposal.

The mere fact that the volume was in use made
me uneasy. Automaton clocks are not a particularly
popular subject. At once I thought of
the duke. Was it possible that already he had
seen the book St. Hilary had just been speaking
to me about? That seemed unlikely. But the
next morning, when I was crossing the Dworzowy
Bridge, once more on my way to the library,
I met him face to face.
.bn 110.png
.pn +1

It is difficult to say who was the more surprised.
Though my curiosity was unbounded to
know if he were the person who had been studying
up automaton clocks yesterday, I should have
passed without speaking. But he advanced to
me with open palm, and greeted me with unnecessary
cordiality in French.

“And what brings Mr. Hume to St. Petersburg?”

I murmured something about studies in the
Imperial Library.

At that he looked even more startled than
when he first saw me:

“I, too, have been in the Imperial Library,”
he cried. “I have been reading a rare book
there–one of the rarest in the world.”

“Indeed! The book I wish to consult is also
one of the rarest in the world.”

It was a foolish hint, but I could not forbear
the pleasure of giving it. Already I suspected
that the duke was on the trail of the casket. Instead
of being alarmed or annoyed, it gave me
the keenest delight. Brain against brain. Wit
against wit. Courage against courage. I could
have asked nothing more to my liking. For instinctively
I had felt the mettle of my foe and
measured the chances of my rival for Jacqueline’s
heart.
.bn 111.png
.pn +1

At this bold challenge–it was nothing less–he
started perceptibly. It was impossible to
doubt further. But in an instant the mask had
fallen over his face. He bowed with mock
respect.

“Ah, Mr. Hume is a scholar?” he asked mockingly.
“For me, I find the streets–its life and
pleasures and peoples–more instructive than
any books. Especially here in this strange,
frozen north. Is there not an English poet who
has said that the proper study of mankind is
man? If he had said woman, he would have
spoken the absolute truth. Yes, a beautiful
woman is the apotheosis of fascination and interest
for the man of fashion and heart. Leave
the dull books for the priests and the dotards, my
friend.”

I had nothing to say to this essentially Italian
summing up of the interests of life. We walked
on a few steps in silence. We had crossed the
bridge now. He took my arm.

“Yes, yes,” he continued, “woman is the
proper study of mankind. But when one meets
a woman as lovely as the exquisite Miss Quintard–ah,
knowing her, one knows all there is
for one in life, is it not so?” and he pinched my
arm familiarly.

I withdrew my arm angrily. I resented his
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
tone and his reference to Jacqueline. But I
said nothing, only walked faster toward the
Library.

“I have met many beautiful women in my
life, but now I know there are no more worth
seeing.”

“And did you fathom the lady’s charms so
quickly–in the one short hour at the Palazzo?”
I asked, a little spitefully, I am afraid.

“Fathom? Certainly not. But the vivid impressions
of the hour may be deepened by the
careful and delightful study of a week.”

I stood quite still.

“Of a week?” I stammered.

“Of a week, my friend,” he cried, enjoying
his triumph. “For you must know that I have
seen much of the fascinating Mrs. Gordon and
her adorable niece at Bellagio. I happen to have
a villa there.”

At Bellagio! I drew in a deep breath, and it
seemed to stab me. I had been wrapped up in
the vain pursuit of a shadow, while that magnificent
brute at my side, twirling his mustache up
into his eyes, had been in the very presence of
the goddess. I could not speak. I hope it was
not jealousy that gnawed at my heart. Indeed,
it was not jealousy at all, I think. It was rather
fear–fear for my dear Jacqueline. Not simply
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
that she was to be won from me–had already
been won from me, perhaps. If one whom I respected
had gained her love, I do not think I
should have cried out. But this Duke da Sestos!
I trembled for her happiness. I knew that Jacqueline’s
aunt was the duke’s ally. And Jacqueline
herself? Women are at once so subtle and
so dense. I have seen the noblest of them deceived
by a charming manner–the cleverest
wedded to a villain or a fool.

We reached the Imperial Library. The clock
on a neighboring tower was striking ten when
the doors of the Library opened and the director
came out. I raised my hat. He returned my
greeting courteously, and informed me that the
book I wished was at last at my disposal. Unfortunately
he mentioned it by name.

“And what interest has Mr. Hume in automaton
clocks?” demanded the duke, when the
director had turned his back.

I shrugged my shoulders, and bade him good
afternoon.

“Mr. Hume, a moment, if you please.”

I turned.

“Your hotel is the de l’Europe, I believe?”

“But unfortunately I am rarely at home,” I
said ungraciously.

“I am disappointed. We might have spent
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
an agreeable hour together in this barbarous
capital. Au revoir.”

I bowed, and went swiftly up the steps. Again
he called me.

“By the way, Mrs. Gordon tells me, Mr.
Hume, that she has entrusted the old clock to
you.”

“That is quite true.”

He looked at me keenly.

“Ah, then, now I understand your interest in
automaton clocks. Your interest awakens mine.
I myself am anxious to see the clock again.
When will you be in Venice?”

“In a month or two,” I answered airily.

“A month or two, my dear friend!” he expostulated.
“I must see my clock before that. I
am thinking of having it repaired for Mrs.
Gordon.”

He emphasized the “my.”

“I have thought of the same thing,” I said
evasively.

“But, Mr. Hume, I beg you to understand that
it is with Mrs. Gordon’s permission that I do so.
Have you asked it?”

“Not yet,” I replied coolly, going up a couple
of steps.

His face darkened.

“Then, since I have Mrs. Gordon’s permission,
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
will you kindly write an order to your
servant that he give it me on my return to
Venice?”

“Unfortunately, that is impossible. You see,
I have forestalled you. I have sent it to be repaired.”

He stood a moment, twisting his mustache up
into his eyes. Then, to my astonishment, he
leaped up the steps, two at a time.

“Since, Mr. Hume,” again he took my arm
and almost forced me down the steps, “you
question my word, I will telegraph to Mrs. Gordon
and show you her answer. When I receive
that answer, I shall come to your hotel and insist
that you give me both the name of the maker to
whom you have sent the clock and a written order
to him that he deliver it to me. If you refuse,
I shall be compelled to call in the police, and I
am not unknown here in St. Petersburg.”

“I am afraid I shall find a means to evade your
police, Duke da Sestos,” I said, laughing.

A moment he looked at me, puzzled, then, seeing
my contempt for his threat, laughed also.

“La, la, it is true. I am a great fool. I might
know that to threaten Mr. Hume is not the way
to gain one’s ends. Look, I threaten, I demand
no longer. I beg. I throw myself on Mr. Hume’s
mercy. I confess I am most anxious to see the
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
clock. I take it for granted that Mr. Hume has
had reasons for my not seeing it. But come,
we will play fair. You have the clock, it is true.
But, after all, I have the right to it. Let us
grant, then, that we stand on even ground. Our
rights to it are equal–your right, that of possession;
mine, the moral and legal right. We
will go together to the telegraph bureau. We
will each of us telegraph to Mrs. Gordon for permission.
She shall decide. Come, is that not
sportsmanlike?”

“Hardly,” I replied, laughing again. “The
result would be too much a matter of certainty–for
you.”

“Ah, you are determined to be unfair,” he
cried angrily.

I hesitated a moment. Then I seized his
arm.

“Come along, then,” I said, still laughing,
“we will go to your telegraph bureau.”

It seemed the only way to get rid of him; but,
I may say, I had no intention of abiding by the
decision of Mrs. Gordon.

We entered the bureau. We stood at the desk,
and each seized pen and paper. But before the
duke had written a line, he had recognized an
acquaintance in the street. I must excuse him
one moment, and would I await his return so
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
that we might compare our telegrams and avoid
any misunderstanding?

I waited ten minutes. Then, my telegram in
my hand, I stepped outside the bureau and
looked up and down the street. He was not in
sight. I waited ten minutes more. Still the duke
did not return. My patience was exhausted. I
went back to the Library. But when I called for
my book, to my extreme astonishment, it was
again in use. It had, declared the attendant ungraciously,
been reserved for me, but they could
not hold it all the morning.

So this Italian duke had tricked me. The telegram
was simply a ruse, a clumsy and senseless
ruse, if you will, but I had been guileless enough
to let it work. But it would not avail him long.
Granted that he had delayed my seeing the book,
all I had to do was to return in the afternoon.
I walked back to my hotel for breakfast.

There the second surprise of the day awaited
me. A telegram from Jacqueline had been sent
to me to Venice, and retelegraphed to me at St.
Petersburg by my housekeeper. It was sufficiently
puzzling:

“<em>Please be sure to accept aunt’s invitation for
Friday. I am anxious to see you–most anxious.
I shall expect you Friday–absolutely.</em>”

I held it in my hand, astonished and perplexed.
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
An invitation had been sent to me by Mrs. Gordon
to visit her at Bellagio; I was to come on
Friday; Jacqueline especially wished to see me.
But why? Why should she expect me “absolutely”?
Was it possible she had told Mrs.
Gordon of my love for her? Dare I put the most
favorable meaning into the message? At any
rate, if I were to arrive at Bellagio on Friday, I
must leave that afternoon. Well, after my breakfast,
I could return to the Library, have a look
at the monograph on clocks, and still catch the
train.

But even as I was hurrying to the restaurant,
I paused. Was this another of the duke’s tricks,
a more elaborate one? A moment’s thought
showed that this was most unlikely. I hurried
through my meal, and taking a drosky returned
to the Library, determined to wait there until I
had seen my book.

This time, at any rate, the book was not in use,
and in five minutes I had it in my hands.

I turned to consult the index. Apparently
there was no index. I went through the volume
carefully to find mention of the da Sestos clock,
and presently I discovered that fourteen pages
of the volume had been completely torn out.

I stared down at the mutilated book. So at
last the duke’s game was revealed in its beautiful
.bn 119.png
.pn +1
and simple entirety. He must have hurried back
to the Library when he left me in the telegraph
office. He, of course, had torn out the leaves.
Score two for the duke. The game was becoming
interesting.

When I called the attention of the librarian
to the torn pages, he summoned the assistant
who had given out the book. Did the assistant
know that these fourteen pages were missing?
The young man replied that he had noticed that
yesterday. He had intended to speak to his
chief about it. When asked if he could describe
the reader, he replied that he could not. Pressed
still further, however, he thought he remembered
that the reader of the book had been an old man
and had brown eyes. It was useless to say any
more. It was evident that the assistant had been
bribed and was lying. I might have given the
librarian a hint or two as to what had become of
those fourteen pages, but I wished to keep the
police out of our game. Before long, perhaps,
I might have to trust to the duke’s generosity.
In the meanwhile, I would go to Bellagio to learn
why Jacqueline wished to see me so urgently.
.bn 120.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XI

.sp 2
I saw no reason why I should inform either
Mrs. Gordon or Jacqueline of my little trip to
St. Petersburg. I greeted them both as if I had
just come from Venice, and had duly received
Mrs. Gordon’s invitation. It may be readily
imagined that I was curious to know why
Jacqueline had added her <pm corr 114.8 urgen urgent> telegram in
addition to her aunt’s note.

But Jacqueline was never a primer to be
spelled out with simplicity and accuracy. She
met my anxious and significant glance–and I
took care not to ask questions–with smiling and
open-eyed composure. She was evidently relieved
to see me, but she made no effort to see
me alone. Rather, she seemed to avoid me; at
least, until my visit drew to a close. That close
was sudden and startling. My departure from
the Hotel Grande Bretagne was nothing less than
a dismissal.

It was not until after dinner that Mrs. Gordon
gave me any clue as to why she had asked me
to spend a few days with Jacqueline and herself
at Lake Como. Just how long my visit was to
.bn 121.png
.pn +1
last I was in dubious ignorance. I was smoking
my postprandial cigar on the terrace, wondering
how I might tactfully sound the formidable
Mrs. Gordon for this information, when she appeared
with her niece. Jacqueline was reading
a letter from home. Mrs. Gordon held up a
jeweled hand impressively, and waved it significantly
toward her.

“My dear, will you fetch me my shawl? Pray
do not throw away your cigar, Mr. Hume. Be
seated. I am anxious to have a talk with you.”

My heart thumped ridiculously. Had Jacqueline
confessed to her aunt her love for me?

I professed myself properly at her disposal.
She cleared her throat and folded her arms across
her ample person. Unconsciously she was assuming
the airs of one of the Council of Ten.
But that was Mrs. Gordon’s way, and I waited
expectantly.

“It is a great pleasure to have you with us,
Mr. Hume,” she began with ponderous cordiality.

I hastened to assure her that there was no place
more beautiful than Como in April, and looked
wistfully after Jacqueline, who had brought the
shawl, and was now strolling about the shrubbery.

“You are the only person to whom I can turn
in perplexity, that is, while we are here in Italy.
.bn 122.png
.pn +1
It so happens that I am sadly in need of advice
and information.”

I assured her that I would do all in my power
to help her.

“It is with regard to Jacqueline.”

I was careful to show nothing more than a
friendly interest. One needed to be wary with
the worldly Mrs. Gordon.

“Or, rather, it is with regard to Duke da
Sestos.”

“The Duke da Sestos!” I exclaimed, startled.
“I can not see, Mrs. Gordon, how a matter touching
the Duke da Sestos can affect your niece,”
I said after a pause.

“No?” She looked after her niece thoughtfully.
“But if I tell you that the duke is in love
with her, Mr. Hume?”

“And–and, her feeling toward the duke?”

“I have reason to believe that Jacqueline’s
wishes will coincide with mine,” she answered
complacently.

Jacqueline’s wishes would coincide with hers!
There was little doubt as to what her wishes
were. So the worst had really come. I looked
out toward the lake, hardly trusting myself to
speak. The tender blue of the still waters; the
purple mountains; the song of birds; the cries
of children; the toll of a church-bell; and Jacqueline,
.bn 123.png
.pn +1
in white, slipping through the green trees–everything
had charmed me only a moment ago.
But now I saw only Jacqueline–not the laughing
Jacqueline, my Jacqueline, who waved her
hand back at me smiling, but the Duchess da
Sestos, neglected wife, scorning her husband,
and hating him, doomed to a slow and wretched
death in life, sacrificed by this miserable old
worldling.

“I could imagine nothing more unfortunate
than that she should feel any interest in Duke
da Sestos,” I said with feeling.

She looked at me anxiously.

“Do you know anything derogatory to him,
Mr. Hume?”

“No,” I answered bluntly, “I know nothing
of him.”

She sighed out her relief.

A large person, with an English accent carefully
modulated, Mrs. Gordon was not easily
moved to anxiety. Her nerves were padded in
leather. One could not prick them with anything
less formidable than a pitchfork. But my remarks
had ruffled her complacency for the moment,
that colossal complacency as immense as
her wardrobe, and silly and moveless as her
pride. But even she would hesitate to encourage
the duke’s suit if I could show her it was quite
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
impossible. Could I do that? At least, I intended
to try.

She pondered a moment. “So you know nothing.
But it would not be difficult for you to make
inquiries. Understanding Italian life, as you do,
living in Venice so long––”

“Make inquiries, Mrs. Gordon?” I interrupted
coldly. I should have thought my cool stare
would have disconcerted her somewhat.

“And,” she continued frostily (evidently the
stare had been wholly in vain, then), “it seems
to me that my appeal to you should be received
in the light of a duty. You are one of our oldest
friends. You ought to have Jacqueline’s interests
at heart.”

“God knows I have her interests at heart,” I
cried bitterly. “But I fail to see––”

“Of his rank and station,” she continued,
waving my protest aside, “I can judge for myself.
I am told he is a personal friend of the
king. His family antedates the very founding
of Venice. I know not how many quarterings
his coat of arms may boast. As to his finances,
that, naturally, is a serious question. I could
not, as a matter of duty, permit myself to ignore
that important phase of the case. Still, Jacqueline’s
<em>dot</em>, if she has due regard to my wishes,
will not make his lack of means an insurmountable
.bn 125.png
.pn +1
obstacle. But, Mr. Hume, his character,
that is of importance.”

“Yes,” I said significantly, “it is.”

“I do not mean,” she hastened to add, “that–er–he–er–may
not have been guilty of some
of the indiscretions of youth. That is to be expected
of a nobleman of his rank.”

“Then, Mrs. Gordon, may I ask just what you
do mean?” I inquired suavely.

“That at least there must have been no scandal,
Mr. Hume, no open scandal. I could not
permit dear Jacqueline’s position to be in any
way equivocal.”

“Your concern as to that is most sensible,” I
said sarcastically. “Still, I am in ignorance as
to just how I may help you.”

“Really, Mr. Hume, you are strangely heedless
of my words. Did I not say a moment ago
that I looked to you to make certain inquiries
for me?”

“In other words, Mrs. Gordon,” I said coldly,
“you are asking me to be your private detective,
are you not?”

She held up her hands in horror.

“An office that I can not undertake, even for
you or your niece. I can think of no marriage
for Jacqueline that could possibly be more distasteful
or more disastrous.”
.bn 126.png
.pn +1

“If you know nothing about Duke da Sestos,
how can you say that his possible marriage with
my niece could be a misfortune? I may be very
dense, but I fail to follow your reasoning, Mr.
Hume.”

“But, Mrs. Gordon,” I said earnestly, “can
you not guess something of a man’s character
without knowing all about him?”

“If I could,” she answered slowly, “I should
say that you do not appear to me to be quite disinterested
in your statements.”

“And if that is true, Mrs. Gordon?” I flung
away my cigar and my caution. “If I confess
that I am not disinterested, as you call it? What
then? Say that I love your niece, and I suppose
it is right that you should know that. My love
for Jacqueline is great enough not to grudge her
happiness, even if that happiness is to be with
another man. But to see her persuaded into a
marriage that every instinct tells me is wrong,
that I know must prove unhappy–I can not
allow that to be done without a protest, though
in making that protest I have betrayed my own
love for her. Mrs. Gordon, if I know nothing
of Duke da Sestos, I do know something of his
class. Can I say nothing that will influence
you?”

She gathered her shawl about her, and looked
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
at me with stony indifference. I might as well
have appealed to the little waves that lapped the
shore. But I continued desperately:

“I can not help it that you misjudge me. I
must speak. I must plead Jacqueline’s cause for
her, even though she should resent my doing
that, for I am pleading for her happiness. You
lay emphasis on the rank of this Duke da Sestos.
He is a duke. But, Mrs. Gordon, there are seventy
ducal houses in Sicily alone. There is no
law of primogeniture in Italy. Titles carry no
distinction with them. Princes, dukes, marquises,
counts, they are infinitely more numerous
in Italy than decent men.

“As to the character of this aristocracy–you
ask me of the duke’s, I will tell you the characteristics
of most. He is an officer in the cavalry,
therefore he lives beyond his pay. He is a gambler,
a spendthrift. His property is mortgaged
to the hilt. A rich marriage is his only hope.
He hunts, shoots, wears English clothes, and
that is as far as he approximates the manly
habits of the Englishman. The Italian’s idea of
a sportsman is to ride to the meet in a dog-cart
with a fat poodle at his side. The smaller the
pony, the fatter the poodle, the more of a sportsman
he is. Cards, gossip, his mistress–they
make up his life, his real life.”
.bn 128.png
.pn +1

“And supposing that all this is true, I do not
forget that you are speaking of a class and not
of an individual, Mr. Hume.”

“I am only imploring you to be very careful.”

“After you have refused to make inquiries?
You are inconsistent.”

She rose and confronted me with a placidity
as obstinate as if I had not spoken.

“All that you have said I will try to put to
the best of motives, but you have not shown a
generous spirit. In my turn I must appear ungenerous,
I fear. I must protect Jacqueline, and
unfortunately, in my opinion, her marriage with
you would be quite as disastrous as you pretend
hers would be with the duke.”

“I did not mean to speak ungenerously, Mrs.
Gordon,” I said humbly.

“And, as I was about to say, though it may
appear ungracious, I am compelled to withdraw
my invitation that you remain our guest here.
Unless, of course, you will give me your promise
that in no way––”

“I understand,” I said stiffly. “I should not
feel happy to stay under those circumstances.
I shall leave to-night.”

I bowed. Then I turned to her for a last
appeal.
.bn 129.png
.pn +1

“Mrs. Gordon, it is natural that you should
listen to me with suspicion, but try to believe
that I speak disinterestedly. Do all you can to
discourage Jacqueline. She is very young. She
is romantic, like so many girls. It is so easy for
her to make a mistake, if there is no one to guide,
to advise. Take her away from Italy, at least
for the present. Will you?” I held out my
hand.

“Mr. Hume,” she retorted spitefully, “in
these affairs of the heart each must decide for
oneself.”

“Yes, yes,” I cried eagerly. Then something
in her strange smile made the words die on my
lips, and I faltered, “Jacqueline has already decided
that–that she loves the duke?”

“I have reason to believe so. The duke himself
assures me that she has given him encouragement.
More than that, Jacqueline herself
does not deny it.”

“Thank you,” I said miserably, and went into
the hotel to pack my things. The worst had
come, then, for, much as I disliked Mrs. Gordon,
I did not do her the injustice to suppose that she
was lying.

Perhaps I ought to have trusted Jacqueline
more. I should have known that no good woman
listens lightly to a man’s declaration of love; and
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
she had listened to mine. But, again, Jacqueline
had given me no assurance whatever that she
returned my love. She had found it difficult to
make up her mind, not only as to whether she
really loved me, but whether I were really in
earnest in declaring my love for her. And so
that evening I walked very soberly toward the
steamboat-landing, followed by the porter with
my bag.

The little steamer had given its warning toot,
my bag was aboard, I was about to follow, when
I turned, hoping for one last glimpse of Jacqueline.
To my surprise, she was running toward
me. She was in distress. In an instant I was at
her side.

“What, what does it mean, you going away
like this?” she panted.

“I am going back to Venice, Jacqueline,” I
answered her gravely.

“To Venice!” she cried, dismayed. “To
Venice this evening, and without saying good-by
to me? Why?”

“I have had a tiff, dear Jacqueline, with your
aunt, and she has ordered me off. I leave the
field,” I added a little bitterly, “to a handsomer,
and I wish I could say to a better, man.”

She withdrew the hand she had given me, and
flushed angrily. Then her face became very pale.
.bn 131.png
.pn +1

“Forgive me, Jacqueline, I did not mean to
hurt you.”

“And what has my aunt told you?” she almost
whispered.

“She has told me, Jacqueline, that Duke da
Sestos has asked you to be his wife. She wishes
you to consent. She believes that you have not
refused him.”

Her color came and went. She drew in a little
breath, and her brown eyes looked over at the
mountains beyond Cadenabbia. Tears gathered
in them and began to fall slowly down her
cheeks.

“But it is not true,” I cried, and seized her
hand. “It is impossible that you should have
done that.”

“It is quite true,” she said almost impassively.
“He has asked me to be his wife. I have encouraged
him.”

“Then there is nothing more to be said. Good-by,
dear Jacqueline.”

She caught my coat in her eagerness.

“Listen, Dick. It is because of that I telegraphed
you. You must help me. I need you.
Would you do something for me that was quite
useless–that would give you infinite trouble–that
would bring you no reward except my
thanks?”
.bn 132.png
.pn +1

“I think it quite possible,” I said, smiling.
“What is it?”

“It is so difficult to make you understand,”
she cried, distressed.

“I will wait till to-morrow.”

“No, no; if you are to help me in this, you
can not do it too quickly.”

We began to walk toward the boat, which had
emitted another piercing wail.

“I told you that Duke da Sestos has asked me
to marry him, and that I encouraged him. I did.
But, oh, so unconsciously.”

“You encouraged him unconsciously? Impossible!”

“It is true, Dick,” she insisted tearfully. “I
wished to show him how impossible it was that
I could ever care for him–that nothing but a
miracle could make me love him. It happened
that the steel chest he gave me from the Palazzo
stood on the drawing-room table. Quite impulsively
I said: ‘When you bring me the casket
that fitted into that steel box, I will listen to you.’
I said it lightly, Dick, as a bitter jest. I thought
I was asking him to do something quite impossible.
To my surprise, to my dismay, instead of
being indignant or angry, he took my words quite
seriously. He refused to see that I had asked
him to accomplish an impossibility. In that intense
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
foreign way of his, he kissed my hand,
bidding me good-by for the present, but he promised
me that, sooner or later, he would return
with the casket. I was so astonished I could say
nothing. Before I could recover myself he had
gone. And if he should find it! Oh, Dick, if he
should!”

I laughed joyously–happily. “He shall not,”
I cried, “because I am going to find it myself.
And if I do find it, Jacqueline?”

“I shall be so glad,” she said shyly.

“But my book of legends,” I said with affected
seriousness. “Am I to give up writing the legend
of the clock? I thought I was to persist in my
task. Nothing was to turn me from it.”

“But I am giving you this new task, Dick,”
she said, laughing happily.

“Yes, yes,” I said, as I leapt aboard at the
last moment. “I think I may find time to do
this new task for you, and my legend of the clock
as well.”

Not until the boat touched the farther shores
of Lake Como did it occur to me that Jacqueline
would think this promise but a half-hearted one.
That there was any connection between the clock
and the casket she had, of course, no idea.
.bn 134.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XII

.sp 2
I reached Venice by the midnight express.
St. Hilary was waiting for me on the platform.

“St. Hilary!” I cried with affected gaiety,
“what brings you here at two o’clock in the
morning?”

“Ah, what!” he grumbled. “Have you no
imagination? But wait till we are in my gondola.
You are going to your rooms, I suppose?”

We were scarcely seated when he turned
eagerly toward me. His yellow face was haggard
for want of sleep and lined like an old
carved ivory, but in the pale light of the lamps
of the landing I saw his eyes gleam.

“You are in good enough spirits to have good
news. Come, no one can hear us now. Tell me
of your little trip to Russia.”

I recounted to him the story of my fruitless
journey. He listened to me in silence. When
I had finished, he drew aside the curtains of the
gondola and looked out.

“I might have known that you would have
just such ill luck,” he said bitterly, and did not
again speak until we had reached the Giudecca.
.bn 135.png
.pn +1

We entered the Grand Canal. One thinks of
the Grand Canal as a <lang=fr><em>mise en scène</em></lang> for endless
processions of tourists. Your true <lang=fr><em>flaneur</em></lang> shuns
it. He keeps, as far as possible, to the cool blue
shadows of the little canals.

But to-night this majestic waterway laid a
fresh spell on me. It awed me. This silent
stream, black as death, was full of mystery. A
menace lurked in the deep shadows of the great
palaces, pallid and ghostlike in the darkness.
The steel prow of our gondola, curving upward
proudly, dipped and glided through the inky
waters. Is there in the whole world anything
inanimate so graceful, so almost alive, so light
and so cruelly sharp and strong as the prow of
a gondola? It is the very incarnation of the
spirit of the Venetians of the Renaissance.

To-night, as we penetrated the gloom that was
absolute, except for the light of a tiny lantern
on the deck forward, I could put myself back in
the middle ages. I could see the black barge
of the <lang=it><em>Fante</em></lang>, the captain of the inquisitorial
guard, swiftly rowed with muffled oars to the
palazzo of the unhappy wretch who had offended
against the laws of Venice. The barge stops at
his door; the bolts are slipped by a spy within;
the messenger of torture and imprisonment, somber
as the night, makes his way to the bedside
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
of the doomed man. He starts from his deep
sleep; he is beckoned silently down the echoing
stairs; he seats himself in the black barge; and
so, shivering, he goes to his end.

We shot into one of the narrow, crooked little
canals. And now our gondola scraped the very
walls of the window-barred store-houses that
once overflowed with the wealth of the Orient.
It was impossible to think of myself as a simple
gentleman with a letter of credit at my bankers.
St. Hilary and I were marauders, adventurers,
brawlers, and this prosaic umbrella between my
knees was a long, keen blade, ready for a lively
bout with the watch.

We were in the Giudecca now, dodging this
chain and that of the shipping moored along the
Fondamenta della Zattere. As we made for the
shore opposite, the rain, which had been coming
down in a gentle drizzle, fell smartly, and St.
Hilary shouted to the gondolier to row faster.

Giudecca quarter is anything but fashionable.
Gondoliers repeat the word twice with scorn
when the tourist expresses a wish to go there.
Steamers from Greece and America, laden with
corn, are anchored along its quay. From early
dawn to night, hundreds of barefooted stevedores,
each with his sack on his shoulder, patter
up the narrow plank that spans ship and shore.
.bn 137.png
.pn +1
An instant they poise their burden on the scale
that stands at the doorway of the magazines,
while an official from the customs-house jealously
notes that it is full weight. Then shouldering it
again, they are swallowed up in the cavernous
interiors.

Most of the old palaces of the Giudecca have
degenerated into these store-houses. But here
and there, as a thing so insignificant that it is
overlooked, one finds a low-ceiled <lang=it><em>trattoria</em></lang>, where
at the noon hour the stevedores drink the strong
wines of Chioggia and shout out their lusty
songs; or it may be an infinitesimal shop, where
sharp-faced old women sell fish and cheese and
cherries.

All day long children sprawl and quarrel and
play on the sun-baked pavement; and artists
paint endless pictures of the red and orange
sails drifting slowly by, with the Salute and
Ducal Palace for a background. Yes, the Giudecca
quarter is the quarter of the people. But
to me the stevedores, the children, and the haggling
old women have a charm all their own.
And here, at the Casa Frollo where I lived, no
red-booked tourist sets foot.

Our gondolier, winded with his long pull
against wind and tide, steered for some steps a
hundred feet this side the Casa Frollo. I called
.bn 138.png
.pn +1
to him to row farther up the quay, but St. Hilary
irritably declared it easier for us to walk the distance
than for him to row.

“But why walk in the rain?” I expostulated.
“And how are you going to return to your hotel
on the Riva if you dismiss your gondolier? Gondoliers
hereabouts at two o’clock in the morning
are as rare as horses on the Piazza.”

“It happens that I don’t intend to return to-night
to my hotel. As a matter of fact there will
be no bed for you, my dear Hume.”

“No bed? It is not possible that you have
already brought back our clock?”

“It is not only possible, it is true. I returned
this evening in time to get your telegram and
to meet you.”

“You have had it repaired in a week?”

“Yes; so far as it could be repaired.”

“Then there could not have been much the
matter with it.”

“As it happened, there was not.”

“Then it seems to me that your trip to Amsterdam
was not so very remarkable after all?”
I grumbled.

“Sometimes,” quietly replied St. Hilary, “one
has to go to a great deal of trouble and expense
to get a merely negative result. Sometimes it is
necessary to find out simply what a thing is not.”
.bn 139.png
.pn +1

“And have you found out that it is not, after
all, an automaton clock?”

“My dear fellow, be reasonable. In the first
place, this clock had to be set going. It was too
intricate a piece of mechanism to entrust to any
blundering workman. Are you going to find
fault because it has been set going without any
trouble or delay? Every wheel of its works had
to be taken apart.”

“And the object of that?”

“It was absolutely necessary that we should
be certain that the secret of the clock, provided
it has a secret, is told by the automata, and that
this secret was not hidden in its works. Now, at
least, we know what <em>not</em> to look for.”

“The automata themselves, then, hold the
secret?”

“So far as we can tell at present. The fact
is, I have heard only two of the hours strike.”

“And were the automata of the hours that you
saw in working order?”

“One of them at least was, though, I confess,
the result was slightly disappointing. However,
I certainly did not expect the secret of the clock
to be on the surface.”

We walked up the quay in silence. Suddenly,
as we were crossing a bridge, St. Hilary seized
my arm, his familiar gesture always for silence
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
and caution. He looked over the parapet. Half
a dozen black gondolas, swaying in the wind,
were tied to rings in the wall. In one of them sat
a man. A piece of tarpaulin protected him from
the rain. As we looked at him he struck a match
to light his pipe, and I saw his face.

“Did you ever happen to see that gondolier
before?” demanded St. Hilary as we walked on.

“Never, so far as I know,” I answered idly,
peering through the rain for the landmark of
Palazzo Frollo, two ridiculously small marble
lions on the rail of the balcony of the second
story.

“Hum, then perhaps I was mistaken. By the
way, I met the duke on the Riva as I was going
to the station to meet you.”

“Indeed?” I said indifferently. I was fumbling
for my night-key. I had insisted on that
essentially Anglo-Saxon convenience, and the
door had been fitted with a lock at my expense.
I glanced up carelessly at the windows of my
sitting-room, after the manner of one who has
been away from home for a few days. A light
was shining through the chink of the shutters.
I pointed it out to St. Hilary.

“I remember you told me that you had brought
the clock to my rooms. You left the lamp burning,
I see.”
.bn 141.png
.pn +1

“I? No.”

“Then who can have been in my rooms?”

I heard St. Hilary chuckle in the darkness.

“Rather, say, who is in your room? <lang=it><em>Pianissimo,
mio caro.</em></lang> It will be amusing to surprise
this midnight guest. No, no; not a light, and
silence.”

My rooms were on the second floor. We had
to pass through the sala, a huge apartment, at
least forty feet long, a T-square in shape, and it
extended from the canal to the garden at the
rear, the smaller part of the T-square running
along the side of the canal. The ceiling of immense
beams stretched from wall to wall. Once
these beams had been gaily decorated with geometrical
designs; now they were dingy with a
faded coat of whitewash. The room was lighted
by the feeble rays of a night-lamp in a niche of
the wall.

We tiptoed across the cold floor. Softly, very
softly, I pushed down the straight handle of the
door leading into my room. I drew this door
cautiously toward me. A second door still hid
us from the intruder, if intruder there was.
Cautiously I pushed it ajar, and looked through
the crack, St. Hilary squinting over my shoulder.

Duke da Sestos was seated in my room, and
on a table immediately in front of him ticked the
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
clock. A lighted candle stood on either side of
it. He sat huddled in the deep armchair, his
head sunk on his breast. But he was not asleep.
His elbows rested on the arms of the chair; his
legs were comfortably crossed. A box of cigarettes
was at his elbow, and at his elbow, too, a
decanter of brandy–my brandy.

I closed the door, and at that moment we heard
very faintly from within an exquisite chime of
silver bells. Then the hour of one was struck.

“By Jove, St. Hilary,” I said savagely, “is
that brute to amuse himself all night, drinking
my liquors, listening to the chimes of our clock,
unmolested?”

“Not unmolested,” chuckled St. Hilary softly.

“Ah, then, we stop his little game!”

“With all the pleasure in the world.”

He took off his cloak. It was very thick and
dripping with moisture. He nodded at me,
smiling.

“Yes, yes, you get the idea? Could a troublesome
guest cry out indignantly if this fine cloak
kept his head warm, do you think?”

He spread out the cloak on one outstretched
arm, and tiptoed to the door again. I followed
at his heels.

“But is this necessary?” I expostulated.
“Why not throw him out without any ado?”
.bn 143.png
.pn +1

St. Hilary looked at me with contempt.

“Do you forget the fourteen pages? We must
see them. The chances are they are in his pocket.
We are to be burglars for the nonce, dear Hume,
and this cloak is to go over his head so that he
won’t be too noisy.”

I nodded. “And the program?”

“It is very simple. His back is toward the
door. When the next quarter chimes, I push
open the door softly. I give a twist to my good
cloak, and, <lang=fr><em>voila</em></lang>, we shall have caught our prey.
Blow out the candles, then help me. We shall
wrap the cloak comfortably about his head, so
that he can not see or hear. Then I go through
his pockets. If the stolen pages are there, very
good. If not, his keys may be useful. Have
you a rope? We must fasten his arms and legs.”

“Yes, a trunk-strap.”

“Good. <lang=fr><em>En garde</em></lang>, then. I am extremely
thirsty. My poor lips ache for a smack of that
good liqueur.”

The clock chimed the half-hour sweetly. St.
Hilary, holding the dripping cloak before him
like a shield, pushed open the door.
.bn 144.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIII

.sp 2
St. Hilary did not bungle; and the cloak
served admirably. The duke was no mean antagonist.
As I placed my knee on his spine and
twisted his arms back, while St. Hilary adjusted
the bonds and the gag, I made up my mind that
I should have to train down a little.

“And now?” I whispered, when we had
trussed him up, for all the world like a fat fowl.
It seemed to me rather useless and silly, all this
fuss, and yet, I confess, I found it exciting.

St. Hilary shook his head for silence. One of
the duke’s cigarettes drooping at the corner of his
mouth, he deliberately went through da Sestos’s
pockets. As I watched him, I shook with silent
laughter. St. Hilary played his part with such
boyish gusto. They made a picture, those two:
the duke straining frantically at his bonds; St.
Hilary, deft and cool, quite to the manner born,
tapping this pocket and that, and emptying the
contents of each in a little heap on the table–money,
keys, letters. When he had glanced
through the last, he conscientiously returned each
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
article to its respective pocket. Except the keys
and the copy of a telegram. The keys he calmly
transferred to his own pocket; the telegram he
handed to me. I read it curiously:

“Please tell Mr. Hume that he is by all means
to give you the clock at once.”

It was signed by Mrs. Gordon, and was directed
to the duke. I looked at it thoughtfully.

“Supposing, St. Hilary, that while reading
this telegram the candle’s flame happened to
catch it. Naturally, I should let it go–like
this,” I whispered, and stamped on the burning
paper.

“Wise young man,” commented St. Hilary.
“And now I am going to return the call of the
duke. We are going to play our little game of
tit for tat.”

He put on his cloak, then, drawing its folds
about him, he beckoned me out into the sala.

“Yes, I am off to our comedian’s apartment.
We must have those fourteen pages, if possible.
Do you keep your eye on the duke there until four
o’clock. Then let yourself down-stairs softly,
very softly. Return noisily, very noisily. Imagine
you have been dining, as the poet says, not
wisely but too well. You will then be horrified
to discover that our lord duke is blindfolded,
strapped, and gagged. You release him with
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
cries of concern. You are all sympathy. We
have done our work skilfully enough so that he
can not know we are the aggressors. It is true,
he may guess. I shall return here to-morrow
morning, probably not before noon. We shall
need a few hours’ sleep. I hope I shall bring
those fourteen pages with me, then we can amuse
ourselves with our <pm corr 140.8 clock. clock.”>

“But our beast of prey in there. Though he
can not see or move, don’t forget he can hear.
Keeping still until four o’clock in the morning
does not appeal to me in the least. Why not shut
him up in my coat-closet until it is time to release
him?”

“Excellent.”

We entered my room again, and, in spite of his
struggles, stood the duke upright in the narrow
closet. Then, leaving him standing there like a
mummy, we turned the key on him and left him
to his reflections.

“Now I’m off,” whispered St. Hilary.

When he had closed the door behind him, I
took the seat in front of the clock. I waited for
the clock to strike the hour of two.

The silver bell struck the three-quarter-hour.
The minutes dragged on. As I sat there, staring
at the clock, my eyes on its face, it seemed a thing
sinister, half alive. Its yellow face took on a
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
look that was half human. It made faces at me.
It mocked me.

And then at last a spring whirred. The little
silver bells, sweet as an elfin chime in fairyland,
shocked me into rigid attention. It was two
o’clock. I watched the doors eagerly.

At first I thought none of the twelve doors had
opened. I forgot for the moment that the door
of the second hour was at the side of the clock.
I moved the candle to the side. Yes, the door
was wide open. I thrust the rays of the candle
at the little doorway, and I saw–what?

A circular platform was being pushed slowly
forward. On this platform was a tiny throne in
silver. At the foot of this throne a bronze figure
crouched abjectly. Another figure stood upright
at the base of the throne. In his two hands the
upright figure clutched a sword. As the clock
struck twice, the sword was raised high above
his head, with a droll, mechanical jerk. It descended
twice on the neck of the crouching figure.
Then, very slowly, the platform retreated into
the doorway. The door closed.

That was all. A dollar cuckoo clock is hardly
less impressive or more ridiculous. A figure
hacks with a sword at a figure complacently
kneeling to receive the blow–that was all! But
was it all? Was there not, behind the little
.bn 148.png
.pn +1
figure, a background of bronze, a drop-curtain,
so to speak? And on the background was there
not something in bas-relief? I felt quite sure
that there was, though the two automata must be
the principal actors in the foolish scene. I jotted
down as much as I could remember, and waited
for three o’clock to strike.

But if the previous hour was disappointing,
this was maddeningly so. This time I had the
two lighted candles standing at the third door,
that not a fraction of a second might be wasted.

Again the whirr of the spring and the chime
of bells. The third door opened slowly. The
circular platform was pushed out again. A single
figure this time. I watched it, breathless, and
it did–nothing. It stood there motionless. But
at the second glance I saw that it was designedly
motionless. It was not an automaton. It was
simply a piece of bronze cast in the shape of an
old man in a flowing robe. The Doge’s cap was
on his head. His right arm was lifted as if gesticulating.
And as the hours struck, there appeared
from the rear of the platform, in quick
succession, tiny round disks. They sprang into
line from within one after the other. Before the
door closed I counted ten of them. They stood
in a row, facing the immovable figure. There
was again a bronze plate at the back. At first
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
I thought it was ornamented with a geometrical
design. But as I looked at it more closely, I saw
that it was a gate. This scene was more tantalizing
than the last. When the clock had been in
perfect repair the ten disks must have been the
basis for ten automata, much after the fashion
of the Noah’s Ark men of our childhood. Naturally,
the ten figures suggested the Council of
Ten, and the single figure the Doge. But one
would need some imagination to guess their significance.
The clock might have a wonderful
secret to tell, but it would take a genius or extraordinary
luck to puzzle it out.

The clock ticked complacently. It seemed to
jeer at me with its clacking rhythm. I lighted
one of the duke’s excellent cigarettes. My nerves
had been spurred to an ecstasy of excitement. I
had expected wonderful things to happen. Nothing
had happened. Nothing, I said to myself, was
going to happen. I was very sleepy. The irritating
tick-tock sounded far away. I nodded in
my chair.

The whirr of the spring and the silver chime
aroused me. I leaned forward languidly, cynically,
rubbing my eyes. The first of the six doors
in front opened. This time no automaton appeared.
In the background I made out some
monster, a well-curb, and a tree. The door
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
closed slowly. I laughed aloud. St. Hilary and
myself had been mad to dream that after almost
five centuries the clock could tell its secret, if
indeed it had a secret to tell.

I yawned, blew out the candles, put on my
overcoat and hat, and slipped down-stairs. It
was time to let the duke out of his box.
.bn 151.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIV

.sp 2
I walked a few rods from the house, hugging
the wall. Returning noisily, I pulled the bell
half a dozen times. True, I had my key in my
pocket, but just now it would have been as well
to have left it at home. All the world must know
I had just returned from my journey.

I had to wait five minutes before the frowsy
head of my housekeeper peered over the balcony.
In the meanwhile, I discovered another head
looking at me from over the edge of the quay.
By the rays of the lantern at my door I recognized
the face staring at me intently as that of
the man whom we had seen smoking under the
bridge. He was the duke’s gondolier. He was
waiting for his master.

Then he knew the duke was in my rooms.
That was awkward. Had he seen me come out
of the house? Nothing was more likely. What
if his master should question him, presently, if
he had seen any suspicious characters about?
What if the man told his master that he had seen
me come sneaking out of the house one minute,
to return noisily the next? When he described
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
me, what would the duke naturally infer? And
if, still later, the duke discovered that St. Hilary
had paid this midnight visit to his room? Well,
at any rate, he would be assured that we were
really in earnest. He would know that if the
casket was to be found, he was not the only one
who was looking for it.

I stepped into the hall and banged the door
after me. I stumbled up the stairs. I clattered
across the sala. I sang. I lurched into a table.
I fell with a crash against the closet-door in
which the duke was imprisoned. There was no
doubt about my having come home this time.
Even the duke in his narrow box must have
heard me. I lighted a candle, and taking off my
coat and waistcoat, I held them in front of me
with one hand and flung open the closet-door
with the other. I was prepared to express surprise.
I had an exclamation conveniently on my
lips. It so happened that my surprise was genuine.
As I opened the door the duke toppled over
limply into my arms. He had fainted.

I let him slip to the floor. I unbound his
wrists and legs. I tore off the gag. I chafed
his hands. I poured water over his face. Upon
my word, between us we had well-nigh smothered
the chap.

He opened his eyes presently. Sitting up, he
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
blinked at me. Slowly the pallor left his face.
He glanced about the room; he shook himself
together, rose to his feet, laughed lightly, and,
walking over to the table where his cigarettes
lay, he lighted one, and inhaled it deeply.

“Ah, my friend Hume, that was not a pleasant
half-hour. I must thank you, my deliverer.”

I shook hands rather guiltily. I noticed that
he was curiously examining his cigarettes.

“The thief has been helping himself,” he said
carelessly.

“Thief?” I cried, alarmed, and rushed to my
bedroom. I threw out the contents of a drawer
or two, and came back into the sitting-room, the
picture of despair.

“Yes, thieves,” I said feebly, as I sank into a
chair. “A diamond scarf-pin, a watch, a few
hundred lire–all stolen.”

“<lang=it><em>Mio caro</em></lang>,” he cried hypocritically, seizing
my hands.

“But how did you get into my closet?” I demanded.

“My dear Mr. Hume, do you think I walked
in there?”

“I suppose not,” I answered dryly; “but I
suppose you walked into my sitting-room?”

He was voluble in his excuses. He had come
on a little errand. He must have fallen asleep.
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
He remembered nothing till he was seized and
bound and robbed.

“So they have robbed you, these thieves?” I
asked indiscreetly.

“Yes; they have taken my keys,” and he
looked at me keenly.

“Your keys!” I expostulated. “What would
they do with your keys? You must have left
them at home.”

“Perhaps. <lang=fr><em>Eh bien</em></lang>, Mr. Hume, I must bid
you good night. I must walk, I suppose, to the
Tragetto Ponte del Piccolo for a gondolier.
Why, my friend, do you dwell in this barbarous
Giudecca?” Then his eyes fell on the table,
where the clock ticked loudly. “Ah ha, my old
clock, and it goes. Capital! I had quite forgotten
my errand.”

“And that is?”

“To deprive you of my clock, my friend. Do
you forget that we were to telegraph Madame
Gordon in St. Petersburg? Oh, la, la, you did
not wait for me at the bureau, I remember. That
was not the act of a sportsman.” He shook his
head reproachfully.

“I thought it was you who did not wait for
me,” I said dryly. “And have you yet received
an answer to your telegram?”

“But yes. Behold!” He fumbled in his
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
breast-pocket, and sorted rapidly a package of
letters and papers. “<lang=it><em>Accidenti!</em></lang>” he cried, “it
is not here.”

“No doubt you left it at home with the keys,”
I said coolly.

“Eh? At home with the keys?” He looked
at me with half-shut eyes.

“Why not?” I asked, yawning, and casting a
longing eye toward my bedroom.

He began to laugh boisterously. “It is a matter
to laugh over that thieves should rob one of
a telegram and one’s keys, <lang=fr><em>hein?</em></lang>”

“Decidedly,” I said uneasily.

“But it will be the simplest thing in the world
for me to get another telegram,” he cried mockingly.
“The thieves will not inconvenience me
in the slightest. And as to their going to my
rooms, bah, I am not so big a fool as to leave
anything of interest there for an intruder to gaze
at. No, Mr. Hume, not so big a fool as that.
By the way, did you find your bibelot, that rare
bibelot in the Imperial Library, interesting?”

“I did not take the trouble to go back for it,”
I lied carelessly. “A telegram from Miss Quintard
recalled me to Bellagio.”

I startled him as I had intended to. His face
darkened. He looked at the clock again.

He had heard the spring whirr metallically.
.bn 156.png
.pn +1
The bells began to strike. Instinctively we both
turned, and watched the fourth door open slowly.
Again the figure on the platform had been broken
off. What the background was I could not see.
I dared not show too great curiosity before the
duke.

The door closed. The duke and I looked at
each other.

“It is interesting, all the same, my droll old
clock.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I see that you have had it repaired.”

“I was wondering if that fact would dawn on
you,” I said.

“Am I to understand that because you have
had the clock repaired, my right to it is the less
real?” he inquired, an ugly gleam in his blue
eyes.

“You are to understand precisely that,” I replied.
“And permit me to remind you, first of
all, that this clock is not yours. It is now Mrs.
Gordon’s. She has asked me to keep it for her.
I shall take whatever steps I may think necessary
for its safe keeping. I am beginning to
think that it is valuable when people break into
my rooms to observe it.”

“Break into your rooms?” He looked at me
angrily.
.bn 157.png
.pn +1

“I beg your pardon,” I said suavely. “I was
thinking, of course, of the thieves.”

He bowed. “A very natural mistake. <lang=it><em>Felice
noce.</em></lang>”

“Good night, duke.” We pressed each other’s
hands warmly.

But at the door he turned.

“Mr. Hume, do you not think that when people
resort to the extreme measures of binding
one and shutting one up in closets they must be
decidedly anxious that one shall not see things?”

“Without a doubt,” I retorted airily. “As,
for instance, when they tear leaves out of library-books.”

Again we bowed. So we understood each
other.

I threw open my shutters and looked out.
The duke was stepping into his gondola. Evidently
he saw it was useless to sail longer under
false colors. He waved to me familiarly.

It was a superb morning. The rain had been
blown away. Venice had robed herself in glory,
and proudly enthroned herself as the great enchantress,
the magician of the seas.

I threw myself wearily on my bed for a few
hours’ sleep. The clock might strike as it would.
I was disgusted with its antics.
.bn 158.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XV

.sp 2
It was long past noon when I was awakened
by St. Hilary.

“Well,” I asked sleepily, “have you had any
luck?”

“None whatever. The duke’s belongings were
packed. His rooms were dismantled. If you
remember, he has been living at Bellagio the past
few days. He has a villa there.”

“So you have no trace of the missing
papers?”

“No trace,” he replied gloomily. “But tell
me of your own adventures with the duke.”

“It appears,” he said ruefully, when I had
finished, “that the duke has had the advantage
of us after all. But at least we have the clock.”

“Yes,” I echoed sarcastically, “we have the
clock. But it seems to me that the childish contrivances
one sees sold on the boulevards of
Paris for ten sous are as ingenious. I have heard
it strike four of the hours, and each hour’s results
were more disappointing than the last.”

“Did you expect to find its secret on the surface,
like the pebbles on the sea-shore? There
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
are pebbles on the shore, yes. But, my friend,
a poet has said we must dive for the pearls.”

“The automata are all more or less broken,”
I grumbled. “We gained precious little by our
trips to Holland and Russia, I think.”

“I don’t call my trip a failure.”

“But your Dutch clock-maker didn’t repair
the automata,” I insisted.

“Very true. But he was able to assure me
what I had already guessed and hoped might be
true–that the antics of the automata, even when
the clock was in perfect order, could never have
amounted to much. Their various movements,
however droll and amusing, were too simple to
have much significance.”

“The automata have no significance!” I repeated
testily. “Why, I thought the fact that
the clock as an automaton clock was precisely
the significant point. If the automata amount
to no more than a row of pins, how the devil is
the clock to tell its secret?”

“My dear Hume,” returned St. Hilary quietly,
“they may amount in the end to a row of diamonds.
I did not say that the automata have
no significance whatever. On the contrary, they
are perhaps the principal actors of each scene.
But the chorus of each scene is to be found in the
bas-reliefs that appear on the bronze plates forming
.bn 160.png
.pn +1
the backgrounds. If we grant that, the office
of the automaton figures is chiefly to identify the
twelve scenes in the bas-relief.”

“But if that is true, shall we be able to identify
the scenes in the backgrounds when the automatic
figures are missing?”

“It will be difficult to do so, certainly. But
I believe these automata have a purpose more
subtle than that. If my theory is correct, the
mad goldsmith would not tell his secret by the
uncertain means of a lot of dancing and gesticulating
figures. The mechanism would be too
intricate and delicate to stand the test of wear
and time. It is most probable that the automatic
figures, while serving the subsidiary purpose of
identifying the various scenes in the backgrounds,
are really a bluff. They are a blind
to rob the backgrounds of their significance.
They are designed to catch the attention of the
unwary. The unthinking man, held by the
movements of the figures themselves, would look
no farther.”

“That is a really ingenious theory, St. Hilary,”
I said admiringly.

“Be sure of this,” replied the dealer complacently,
“the riddle that man has been ingenious
enough to devise, man is ingenious enough
to solve.”
.bn 161.png
.pn +1

“Granting always that it is a consistent
riddle.”

“And I have enough faith in my goldsmith
to believe that,” said St. Hilary obstinately.
“But it is three minutes to one. The clock is
about to strike.”

We watched the first of the doors open, the
circular platform pushed out. A headless figure
stood motionless, its right hand resting on a
lion’s head. At the stroke of the hour, the beast
lifted its paw and dropped it again. The headless
figure wiggled its left hand. Then the platform
solemnly retreated, and the door was noiselessly
shut.

“Doesn’t that simply cap the climax for exquisite
inanity?” I cried.

“It is silly enough to bear out my theory.
The raising of that lion’s paw, the ludicrous
wiggling of the solemn figure’s hand, can not
possibly have any meaning.”

“Why are you so sure of that?”

“Because the gestures were made but once.
But you observed the background?”

“It was simply the Ducal Palace,” I said indifferently,
“which of itself may mean much or
nothing.”

“Precisely. It is the figure and the lion that
give the scene its vital touch. Any schoolboy
.bn 162.png
.pn +1
could have recognized them. They stand, of
course, for San Marco, the patron saint of Venice,
and his lion. And now, let us get to work.
Our first step must be to make ourselves familiar
with every detail of each scene of the hours.”

“Since the automata are useless, and, in most
of the hours, are missing entirely, why should
we not take flashlight snap-shots of the twelve
backgrounds? We could then study them at our
leisure.”

“Excellent. But the camera?”

“I have a very good one with an admirable
lens. I can take the pictures myself. These
photos we can always carry about with us on our
person. There will be no danger of the duke’s
stealing those. But the clock, we can’t keep
guard over it all the time. The duke will surely
insist on its being given up to him sooner or later.
If necessary, he will call in the police.”

“Hume, you are an inspiration. What’s your
idea for getting rid of it?”

“If I shipped it to America for Mrs. Gordon,
ought she not to be grateful to me for saving
her that bother!”

“But the duke could readily prevail on her
to cable to America to have it sent back to her.
The ruse would give us a month’s start, it is
true; but what if we shouldn’t find the casket
in a month?”
.bn 163.png
.pn +1

“I have thought of that. If it were sent to a
wrong address, by mistake, or to your shop, for
example? And if you sent instructions that the
box was to be put carefully away until your
return?”

“My dear fellow, you are a jewel of thoughtfulness.
Take your flash-lights immediately; and
when you have made twelve perfect pictures, we
will pack the clock, and see ourselves that it is
safely started on its long journey to America.
Until then, one or the other of us must guard it
day and night.”

I took the twelve flash-lights. They were a
perfect success. Two days later the clock was
boxed, labeled “Glass, with care,” and on its way
to Genoa, whence it was to be shipped to New
York.

On the same steamer was a letter from the
dealer to his partner, advising him that a box
containing an article of value had been shipped
that day, and instructing him to have it stored
away carefully until further orders. All information
concerning it was to be absolutely withheld.

We acted not a day too soon. Our duke appeared
again; this time armed with legal authority.
I expressed the profoundest regret, but
how could I dare to keep so valuable an antique
.bn 164.png
.pn +1
longer in my possession, since I had reason to
know that thieves had already forced their way
into my rooms to steal it? The duke stormed
and threatened. I smiled at him blandly. When
he asked me where I had sent it, I informed him
that I had despatched it to New York, in the
care of St. Hilary’s partner. As to the instructions
St. Hilary had given his partner, the dealer
in antiques would doubtless tell him what they
were, since he had written them. St. Hilary
lied, cheerfully and absolutely, asserting that he
had sent orders to his partner promptly to surrender
the clock to any person bearing a signed
note from Mrs. Gordon.
.bn 165.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVI

.sp 2
For a week St. Hilary scarcely left my room.
He ate little; he smoked boxes of cigarettes; he
consumed pots of black coffee. Such sleep as he
had he snatched for an hour at a time in my armchair.
And always in front of him were the
photographs of the backgrounds of the twelve
hours.

As for me, I waited on him hand and foot. I
was a hewer of wood and a drawer of water.
Now I went to Rosen’s to buy some volume, now
to Organia’s to borrow a collection of rare prints,
now to the Museo Civico to consult the director.
The archives of the Frari, the Academy of Arts,
each of them saw me often. In the morning,
perhaps I looked at a picture of Carpaccio or
Bellini; in the afternoon I explored an obscure
<lang=it><em>canaletto</em></lang>.

I was content to take the humbler position.
St. Hilary had a right to command. His had
been the discovery that made the search possible.
Again, it seemed fit that his quicker brain
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
should catch the fire, the inspiration. I did not
doubt but that sooner or later from the mass of
lifeless evidence, which he was heaping about
him, he would surely draw forth the secret.

But now, after a week of fruitless searching,
his chin a reproach, his hands trembling, and his
temper a thing to be respected, he leaned back in
the chair and despaired.

“It is useless,” he sighed. “The thing is not
to be done in a day or a week. I have not the
art of divination. Sometimes I feel that I am
on the right track. I grope; I touch something;
I clutch at it, but it eludes me, always. There
stands the ticking, mocking braggart. It laughs
at us with its brazen wheels; it mocks us with
its silver tongue. I believe that the spirit of the
mad goldsmith actually dwells in its hollow
sides.”

And yet, in spite of St. Hilary’s despair, we
had accomplished something.

Of the original automata of the twelve hours
we had found four only to be in actual working
order. In three of the hours, some of the figures
were intact, and some were broken. In the five
remaining hours, the figures were completely
lacking.

To consider the four hours with the figures
intact, namely, 1, 2, 6, 7:
.bn 167.png
.pn +1

1.–A robed figure and a lion. The lion nods
once.

2.–A figure standing over a kneeling slave in
an attitude of menace, twice strikes the neck of
the slave with a sword.

6.–A dancing figure advances ten steps forward
and retreats ten steps.

7.–A dove appears at the window of a tower.

In hours 3, 8, 9, some of the figures were intact,
some broken:

3.–A robed figure seated in a chair. Before
this figure, designedly motionless, ten disks appear
in succession, and are ranged in a row. The
figures are broken off the disks.

8.–A crowned figure standing on a dais before
a throne. A second figure at the foot of the
throne is broken off.

9.–A seated figure with a scepter.

In hours 4, 5, 10, 11, 12 there was not the
slightest fragment of the figures remaining.

So much for the automata.

The scenes of the bas-reliefs of the backgrounds
were as follows:

1.–A palace, plainly the Doge’s palace.
Seven arches of the palace are seen. Beneath
six of these arches groups of men are standing–ten
figures in each group, or sixty in all.

2.–A hanging.
.bn 168.png
.pn +1

3.–A gate.

4.–Three trees; a beast of burden, probably
a camel; a well.

5.–Badly mutilated.

6.–Two figures seated on the balcony over the
doorway of San Marco. One figure wears the
Doge’s cap; the other is crowned with a wreath
of laurel.

7.–A barge on a stormy sea.

8.–An empty room in a palace. The door is
open; no figures are seen.

9.–Thirteen kneeling figures with outstretched
hands.

10.–Six gondolas in procession; tritons spouting.

11.–Mutilated.

12.–Three figures holding out bags.

Such were the automata and the bas-reliefs in
the backgrounds of the twelve hours.

As to the scenes they represented, St. Hilary
had made a rough guess at most of them. Four
or five of the scenes he thought he had identified
unmistakably. All twelve of them were scenes
out of Venetian history. When I urged him for
the results he had gained so far, he declared at
first that they were too meager to be suggestive.
But I was not to be balked.

“I have been running your errands for a week,
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
St. Hilary,” I reminded him. “I have been your
obedient messenger–an intelligent messenger,
if you will–and I have left you to do the piecing
together of the different parts of the puzzle.
Now I want to know what you have accomplished.”

“There is very little to tell,” he said sulkily.
“Scene one represents St. Mark and his lion, the
tutelary saint of Venice. As to the second scene,
the story is in every guide-book. The artist Gentile
Bellini visited the Sultan of Turkey, and
painted for him a picture of the daughter of
Herodias bringing in the head of St. John the
Baptist on a charger. The Sultan objected that
the neck was not rightly drawn–that when a
man was beheaded, no neck appeared at all, in
fact. The artist disputed the point. To prove
himself in the right, the Sultan struck off a
slave’s head.”

“And the third hour–the ten disks arranged
in a row?”

“The Council of Ten, I suppose.”

“Well, well, the fourth, St. Hilary?” I cried
sharply.

“Perhaps you know its significance. I don’t.
The camel doesn’t figure in Venetian history, so
far as I know. It is true, Marco Polo traveled
to the Great Khan of Cathay. The scene might
.bn 170.png
.pn +1
have been a chapter out of his life. But after
wading through his travels I have failed to
find it.”

“And the next, I suppose, is too badly mutilated
to be identified?”

“Absolutely,” he grumbled.

“And the background of the sixth hour?” I
asked, studying the photograph through a powerful
magnifying-glass. “Have you been able
to identify either of the two figures seated on the
balcony?”

“Both,” he replied with more animation.
“The figure with the Doge’s cap is Dandolo.
The figure crowned with a wreath of laurel by
his side represents the poet Petrarch, who was
his guest. The automatic figure that dances the
ten steps forward and backward symbolizes a
festival held on the Piazza after Venice had subdued
her enemy Crete.”

“The seventh hour represents,” I ventured,
“the legend of the Doge receiving news of
victory by a carrier-pigeon. Every child who
feeds the creatures on the Piazza knows that
story. The tower must be the Campanile.”

“Quite right. The scene of the eighth hour,”
continued St. Hilary, “you discovered for yourself
in the Academy this morning. The room
of the palace in the background is an exact reproduction
.bn 171.png
.pn +1
of the palace seen in the painting of
Carpaccio.”

“And the ninth?” I demanded, feeling that
our information was meager indeed.

“Here, again, we can only guess. The broken
figure may be Carmagnola, the soldier of fortune.
The thirteen figures kneeling in the background
no doubt typify his conquered enemies.
The procession of the gondolas and the spouting
tritons in the tenth probably represent the going
of the Doge in his bucentaur to wed the Adriatic.”

“And the eleventh hour must be quite hopeless.
The automaton is missing and the plate at
the back is battered beyond all recognition,” I
said moodily.

“The twelfth is almost as obscure,” concluded
St. Hilary. “The figures holding out the bags
are perhaps conquered Genoese offering ransom.”

“It is not very promising,” I confessed,
“Have you any theory whatever as to the meaning
of these scenes?”

“I have a dozen. But they are all equally
impossible.”

“Let me hear one of them, at least,” I urged.

“Well, then, if I repeat to you the numbers
10, 4, 7, 21, 1, 10, 3, 40, of what do you at once
think?”
.bn 172.png
.pn +1

“A cipher,” I cried eagerly.

“That is the theory that seems to me the most
hopeful at present. The numbers I have mentioned
are the figures of the different successive
scenes. It is barely possible that these numbers,
either alone or combined with other numbers,
might bring us to the hiding-place of the casket.
The trouble is that not every scene has figures
in the background. The eighth, for instance.
And in hours five and eleven, the backgrounds
are so mutilated that, even if this theory were
true, we should lack those numbers to make our
cipher complete.”

“And yet the existence of a cipher seems the
only possible way by which the riddle may be
solved.”

“I believe that is true. There are twelve
hours, that is, there are twelve different steps–twelve
different links to the whole chain. Beginning
at hour one, so many steps, paces, or
what not, ought to bring us to hour two. There,
beginning afresh, so many steps, paces, and so
forth, again ought to bring us to hour three, and
so on. Do you get the idea?”

“It sounds reasonable,” I replied thoughtfully.
“But since two or three scenes are missing,
I can not see much promise in this theory.”

“I told you that they were all impossible,”
.bn 173.png
.pn +1
growled the dealer. “So far we are quite at sea.
To-morrow, perhaps–” he sighed wearily.

“To-morrow perhaps we shall have better
luck,” I said cheerfully. “It is always darkest
before the dawn.”

“<lang=fr><em>Pas de banalités.</em></lang> I am not a Sunday-school
scholar to be preached at. Come, let’s to dinner.”
.bn 174.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVII

.sp 2
Three weeks passed before we made any further
progress. A clue, but always an imaginary
clue, would prick us into feverish activity, which
invariably led us nowhere.

But toward the end of the third week of our
search, St. Hilary came to my rooms one afternoon,
triumphant. He had actually made a discovery.
And this discovery proved, beyond the
peradventure of a doubt, not only that the clock
had a story to tell, not only that the twelve hours
actually did constitute twelve links of a chain,
but that somewhere, in the background of each
hour, there was some mark corresponding to a
like mark in some part of Venice.

“It is only a little clue,” he said with affected
modesty, “a very little one. But who knows that
it may not be the wedge that shall pry open our
treasure-box?”

“Produce this wedge by all means,” I said
skeptically.

“This morning, about half past ten, I found
.bn 175.png
.pn +1
myself in the Campo San Salvatore–you know
it, the little square with the house of the gaily
painted balcony and the roses on the north side.
At the left of the square, going toward San
Marco, perhaps you remember, there is a boys’
school. You may have observed a respectable
old servant who walks solemnly up to the big
bell on the left of the door, leading a little boy
by the hand. He always rings the bell at eight
o’clock in the morning. When the door is opened
he hands the school-books to his charge, shakes
his finger at him, and toddles off to the seller of
sweetened water at the corner for a drink.”

“Has this respectable old man anything to do
with your precious discovery?” I asked impatiently.

“A great deal to do with it. This morning,
as I was saying, I caught sight of my old man
and the young gentleman. My eyes dwelt on
them affectionately while the servant rang the
big bell, and shook his forefinger at the smiling
boy. Now observe, my dear Hume; if I hadn’t
met my old man, I should have hurried through
the square. In that case I should have missed
the boy with the fish.”

“Oh, there is a boy with a fish, is there?” I
remarked.

“Yes,” he said severely, “there is a boy with
.bn 176.png
.pn +1
a fish. While I stood watching the old man, a
stream of curses and abuse in the Venetian dialect
disturbed my pleasant reflections. I turned,
and there, at the open door of a large house,
stood a barefooted boy with a flat basket of fish.
Two servants were shrieking at him like the very
devil. The fish was bad, perhaps, or the boy
had given the wrong change. I do not know.
The point is that the old servant, the seller of
sweetened water, who left his stand, and the
dark-eyed gipsies at the well, who left their
buckets, came to look on. The bad little boy with
the fish didn’t like this publicity. Especially
when a majestic policeman with a long feather
in his round hat––”

I groaned. “Is the majestic policeman with
the long feather in his round hat absolutely
essential?”

“The majestic policeman with the long feather
in his round hat is absolutely essential”, said St.
Hilary with an amused drawl.

“Even the long feather in the round hat!” I
could not resist asking.

“Especially the long feather in the round hat,
as you will see if you are patient For this majestic
policeman came on the bad little boy quite
unawares, and, seizing his ear, he made him a
prisoner. Then the youngster wrenched himself
.bn 177.png
.pn +1
free, only to run headlong into another policeman
who was coming from the Calle San Rosario.
The <lang=it><em>spighetti</em></lang>, compelled to double on his
tracks, plunged recklessly into the first opening
that offered. This happened to be the gate leading
into the school garden, that chanced to be
wide open. Now, we thought, the youngster will
surely be caught, and when the policeman with
the long feather in his hat languidly strolled after
his prey, the rest of the square pressed respectfully
after to see the fun. But the young ragamuffin
had the policeman now quite at his mercy,
for he lost himself immediately among threescore
of boys at play. So that presently, while
the policeman was vainly searching the garden
for him, the bad little boy regained the entrance.
He cast one cautious eye into the square to be
sure that the second policeman had disappeared,
and then, after the manner of small boys the
world over, he held his thumb and fingers extended
at the majestic policeman, and called him
naughty names.”

“A beautiful little sketch of low life in Venice,”
I said sarcastically. “But I fail to see
even yet the pertinency of the long feather in
the round hat.”

“Patience, my friend. When he had sufficiently
insulted the majestic policeman in this
.bn 178.png
.pn +1
manner, he took one of his mullets, and hurling
it with precision–-–”

“Struck the round hat with the long feather.”

“–Missed the round hat with the long
feather,” corrected St. Hilary with calm precision,
“but struck the long feather on the round
hat. It hung pitifully, a draggled and wobegone
bit of finery; and those of us who had followed
him into the court naturally regarded it with respectful
sympathy. And then my heart came
into my mouth. The broken feather was pointing,
as it were a human hand, straight to a
round––”

“Not another round hat!” I cried in despair.

“–Straight to a round stone let into the wall.
And on this round stone was carved a camel’s
head, the precise image of the camel’s head in
this photograph of the background of the fourth
hour.”

St. Hilary looked at me in triumph, and,
picking up the photograph, thrust it into my
hand.

“The precise image of the camel’s head in this
photograph,” I repeated, trying to grasp the
significance of that statement. “But why should
you think that the clock-maker copied the head
of that particular camel in the background of
the fourth hour? My dear St. Hilary, your introduction
.bn 179.png
.pn +1
was too elaborate for your news to
be striking. I expected something more startling.”

“But, idiot,” cried the dealer, exasperated,
“look at the photograph. Do you see nothing
peculiar about that camel’s head?”

I took the magnifying-glass and studied the
photograph carefully.

“Nothing–unless it be the eye. Perhaps it
is a defect in the workmanship. But it looks–yes,
it certainly does look as if the camel was
blind.”

“The camel carved on the stone let into the
wall of the house is blind also.”

“This <em>is</em> news, if it is not the merest chance,”
I cried.

“And before the house was used as a school,
it was called the House of the Blind Camel.”

“The House of the Blind Camel!” I repeated
excitedly. “By Jove, St. Hilary, does that mean
you have stumbled on one of the twelve landmarks?”

“Patience. Look at your photograph again.
What else do you see in the background of the
fourth hour?”

“A well,” I answered promptly. “If you
have found the well, there can be no doubt.”

“And I <em>have</em> found the well. Look at the
.bn 180.png
.pn +1
photograph. What is the design of the beading
round the curb?”

“A looped wreath with pomegranates between
each loop.”

“The well in the school garden has a beading
of the same design. But study the photograph
a moment–look carefully at the second and third
pomegranates from the left. Do you notice anything
peculiar?”

“No, I see nothing peculiar about them.”

“The more we study the history of this clock,
Hume, the more I am impressed with the fact
that the eye is a most unreliable organ. We
rarely see a thing as it actually is; we see it as
we expect it to be. Take the magnifying-glass
and look at those second and third pomegranates
carefully.”

“I see now,” I cried. “They are not pomegranates;
they are two rosettes.”

“And there are two rosettes between two of
the loops of the well in the garden. You grasp
the importance of the discovery, I hope. It
means that we have to study the photographs
from quite a different point of view. All we
have to do now is to find in the various backgrounds
some significant mark that is paralleled
in the various landmarks about Venice that lead
to the casket.”
.bn 181.png
.pn +1

“Are you not a little too sanguine, St. Hilary?
These twelve marks are often most obscure. In
the fifth and the eleventh hours there are no
marks whatever.”

“That is true,” replied St. Hilary thoughtfully.
“This discovery by itself is quite useless.
If we could have found the mark of the fifth
hour we could have begun at this fourth hour.
But since that is missing––”

“And I suppose it is useless for us to think
of beginning with the landmarks of the last
hours, even if we could find them in the background.
The last of the landmarks would be
almost certainly found not in the open air, but
in the interior of some palace.”

“There is another difficulty that has just occurred
to me,” continued St. Hilary. “We have
been taking it for granted that we start from the
Pillar of San Marco in the Piazzetta. I still
think that it is reasonable that the search begins
there. If that be true, we find ourselves in the
fourth hour at the Campo San Salvatore, but
the landmark of the sixth hour brings us back
to the balcony of San Marco in the Piazza again.
In the next hour we simply stroll a few feet away
to the Campanile. In that case the mad clock-maker
has been leading us about in a senseless
circle. He may have been mad, but he was not
as mad as that.”
.bn 182.png
.pn +1

“Then you think the wisest thing is for us to
search for the second landmark? It does not
seem particularly promising. So far as I can
see, it is merely a curtain, with a conventional
decoration of what appears to be more like two
husks of corn than anything else I can think of.
One of these husks is perpendicular; the other
horizontal.”

“I see no reason why we should not begin
with the sixth hour,” asserted St. Hilary.

“I think we may begin at any one of them
with an equal chance of success,” I said hopelessly.
“This search of ours is like nothing so
much as hunting for twelve needles in twenty
thousand haystacks.”

And it turned out that I was right. For several
days we made no farther progress. We became
so utterly fatigued and weary of looking
for we knew not what that we saw nothing. We
took to wandering vaguely about the canals and
the streets. A restlessness urged us out at all
hours in search of these vague landmarks.
Every morning after breakfast we set out somewhere.
Every evening we returned discouraged.
And so a month passed, and we were no nearer
to the da Sestos casket.
.bn 183.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVIII

.sp 2
Jacqueline and I had not written to each
other for nearly three weeks.

When I first returned from Bellagio I had intended
to explain the apparent flippancy of my
last words to her–that I could write the legend
of the da Sestos clock, as well as search for the
casket. For Jacqueline was, as I have said, quite
ignorant that the casket and the clock were in
any way connected.

But I had not done so. Partly because I
wished to surprise her with that fact, and partly
because success had not crowned our efforts as
soon as I had hoped. I regretted that I had not
told her everything; and yet each day I put off
doing so. And so three weeks passed, and still
I had not told her.

The fact is, this search for the casket had in
some subtle way raised a barrier between Jacqueline
and myself. At first I had entered into
the quest with enthusiasm. Jacqueline’s entreaty
had given the task a dignity and a certain sacredness.
But, gradually, my motive for finding it
was lost sight of. The madness of St. Hilary
.bn 184.png
.pn +1
had also entered my veins. I became more and
more eager for success purely for its own sake,
and not for Jacqueline’s. The quest had become
almost a mania–just such a restless, haunting,
cruel longing as tempts the miner to drag his
aching feet one more burning mile for the gold
he covets. That Jacqueline had asked me to find
the casket for her redeemed the search from
folly. But as soon as I cared for the thing itself
it became a degrading passion.

It was Sunday morning. St. Hilary had insisted
upon my going once more to the Academy
of Arts to compare the photograph of the eighth
hour with Carpaccio’s picture, the Dismissal of
the Ambassadors, in the series of paintings
known as the Martyrdom of St. Ursula. I was
still in search, of course, of the ever-baffling
landmark.

The bell of the English church was solemnly
tolling in the Campo San Agnese. The doors
of the Academy were not yet open, and I began
to watch listlessly the well-dressed throng of
English and American tourists crossing the big
iron bridge on their way to divine service. To
my great surprise I saw Jacqueline among them.

There was a pensive look on her lovely face
that touched me. I realized, now that I saw her,
how great had been my folly. My eyes had been
.bn 185.png
.pn +1
bent on the mire, while the goddess herself was
passing by. I sprang up the steps of the bridge,
and met her half-way across.

“Jacqueline,” I cried, “when did you come to
Venice?”

She looked at me with a sort of gentle wonder.
I put up my hand guiltily to my chin. St.
Hilary and myself had grown so absorbed in our
search that we had given little thought to what
we ate or drank or what we wore or how we
looked. But Jacqueline, it seemed, was observing
my face and not my scrubby beard.

“We arrived last night. But you look a
ghost, a shadow of yourself.”

“The hunt for the casket, Jacqueline, is an
excellent preventive against obesity,” I said
lightly.

At this reference to the casket the color slowly
left her cheeks, and her eyes looked into mine
wistfully.

“You–you are still searching for it?”

“Of course I am!” I answered almost gruffly.

“I did not know. You have not written,” she
said quietly.

“If I have not written,” I answered, “it is
because there was nothing to write about.”

“Nothing to write about, Dick?” She smiled
dreamily.
.bn 186.png
.pn +1

“Not worth mentioning, Jacqueline.”

“Then you are still in the dark?”

“Absolutely.”

“And–and you have little hope?”

“Almost no hope.”

Absorbed though I was in my own selfish feeling,
I could not but notice the disappointment of
her tone. We were at the church door now. She
held out her hand. To see her pass thus out of
my sight, to know that my own obstinacy was
raising this barrier between us, that I had
wounded her–I could not let her go like that,
even for a few hours.

“Jacqueline,” I said firmly, “I wish to tell
you about this search. I know a half street,
half campo near here, delightfully shaded with
mulberry trees. There are benches, and one may
sit there and talk quietly. Will you go with me?
I will not keep you long.”

“Well, Dick, what is it?” she asked when she
was seated.

Her hands were clasped loosely in her lap.
Her gaze passed me by, and dwelt on the cage
of a thrush hanging on a nail in a doorway. The
feathered prisoner was singing in ecstasy.

“This mad quest that you have sent me on,”
I broke out impetuously, “I want you to release
me from it.”
.bn 187.png
.pn +1

She was silent a moment, then drew herself
up with a certain hauteur.

“I release you from it, of course, since you
wish it,” she answered with dignity.

“No, no, Jacqueline. Not in that way. Do
not misunderstand me. I call it a mad quest not
because it seems a hopeless one. It is mad, because
it is useless. The most rigid sense of
honor could not hold you to your lightly spoken
word. You love the duke, or you do not. You
love me, or you do not. Surely you do not pit
us against each other. This is not a test of love.
And so, I say, this quest is mad. It is leading
me surely away from you. I am beginning to
care for it for its own sake. I want you to release
me from it.”

“It is leading you from me?” she repeated
wonderingly. “But you are doing this for me.
Does not that keep me in your thoughts? You
say this is not a test of love. Why should it
not be? And if the lover is weary already of
his task–if–” Her lip trembled.

“Dear Jacqueline, how can I make you understand?
I ask you to release me from this search,
not because I am tired, not merely because I
think the casket can not be found. It is the principle
of the thing. Supposing that the duke
should bring you this casket, could that possibly
.bn 188.png
.pn +1
alter your feeling toward him? Could that make
you love him more than you do at present?”

“Why should it not?” she answered, a little
defiantly. “In a sense he has shown himself a
truer lover than you. He is keeping up the
search, cheerfully and patiently. And yet every
day he finds time to write me of his failures and
his successes. Apparently, I asked him to remove
mountains. He attempts the impossible
gladly, and sometimes I think he will accomplish
it.”

“The duke has been searching for the casket?
Here, in Venice?”

“Yes, and without a moment’s rest, so he
assures me. More than that, he declares he is
on its track–that he will bring it to me soon.”

I was stupefied. Neither St. Hilary nor I had
once seen the duke since he left my rooms. It
seemed incredible that he should have been in
Venice these past three weeks and that we should
not know it.

“He will bring you the casket soon?” I repeated
blankly. “And if he brings it to you, you
are going to listen to him? Because I have said
nothing, Jacqueline, have you thought me idle
and indifferent? Do you trust him more than
you trust me? If he has the luck to stumble on
this casket, will that prove that he is more worthy
.bn 189.png
.pn +1
of your regard than I? Will you marry him
for that?”

Jacqueline looked at me a moment in silence.
She laid her hand gently on my arm.

“Has this quest troubled you so much? I
begin to think it a very childish one. I begin to
realize my folly, and yet––”

She rose from the bench, and shaking out her
skirts daintily, opened her parasol.

“You are going, Jacqueline? There is no
more to be said?”

“I told my aunt that I was going to church.
I think I had better go. But afterward, if you
will walk to the hotel with me, you may stay to
luncheon, and in the afternoon you may take me
out on the lagoon again. Then you shall tell me
everything–just what you have done, and just
what you have failed to do. And perhaps–perhaps,
I may recall you from the task that you
have undertaken for me.”

“Jacqueline,” I stammered with joy, “you
mean–you mean that you may marry me without
regard to this foolish promise of yours to
the duke?”

“I mean,” she answered slowly, “that I must
know everything–everything. Then I may be
better able to judge just what I ought to do,
what I wish to do.”
.bn 190.png
.pn +1

“I shall wait for you at the church door. I
must first go to my rooms to make myself presentable.
Heavens, Jacqueline, if you could know
the relief I feel at abandoning this mad search.
It has been a nightmare; but now we shall go
out into the blessed sunshine again.”

“But, Dick,” she said wistfully, “you will
need to plead very eloquently this afternoon to
convince me that I may withdraw my word to
Duke da Sestos. If only it had been possible
to find that wretched casket! I shall look for
you after church.”

I watched her disappear within the doorway.
In half an hour I had been to my rooms and returned.
I slipped into a pew at the rear of the
church. I wished to think–to dream. It seemed
incredible that the search was ended. What
would St. Hilary say when he knew that I had
abandoned it? And, strange as it may seem,
already I was vaguely sorry. Could I watch St.
Hilary steadily going on with the search and be
quite indifferent as to his success or failure?
Should I never have regrets that I had not kept
at it a little longer? Then I looked at Jacqueline,
kneeling devoutly a few pews in front of
me, and I smiled joyfully. No, with Jacqueline
as my wife, I had no need of the excitement of
a fool’s errand.
.bn 191.png
.pn +1

Out of the stillness of my thoughts, as if from
afar off, the text of the preacher fell on my ears,
unheeding and yet strangely receptive. The
text was twice repeated. It was sufficiently fantastic
in itself, but to me it was the finger of
fate.

<em>It was pointing to the hiding-place of the da
Sestos casket.</em>
.bn 192.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIX

.sp 2
This was the text:

<em>Moreover, the king made a great throne of
ivory, and overlaid the arms of it with fine gold.</em>

<em>The throne had six steps, and the top of the
throne was round behind, and there were stays
on either side of the place of the seat, and two
lions stood beside the stays.</em>

At first, as I have said, the words fell quite
idly on my ears. Then, without any effort on
my part, a throne made of ivory, its arms overlaid
with fine gold, seemed to flash before my
eyes. I tried to resume the thread of my thought
again, but the vision of the throne of ivory with
the two lions at the side haunted my excited
brain. All at once, with a shock of surprise, I
knew why it stood before me with such startling
distinctness. The throne of the automaton of
the eighth hour was of ivory, its arms were of
gold, it had six steps, and two lions crouched on
either side.

At first I was merely astonished at the similarity
of the throne of the Bible and the throne
of the da Sestos clock. But other scenes of the
hours sprang before my mind in review. I remembered
.bn 193.png
.pn +1
the hour of St. Mark and the lion;
the Council of Ten before the Gate; the Sultan
and the kneeling slave. The scenes stopped
abruptly there. In a flash, almost without
thought, certainly without deliberate reasoning,
I had fathomed the secret of the clock:

<em>The scenes of the twelve hours were not Venetian
scenes. They were Bible scenes disguised
in an environment that was Venetian.</em>

I could parallel each of the three hours that
had occurred to me with familiar stories of the
Bible. The scene of the first hour, the figure of
St. Mark and the lion, as we had thought, was
really Samson and the lion; the Sultan and the
kneeling slave were David and the prostrate
giant, Goliath. The Doge receiving the news of
victory from the dove in the Campanile became
Noah and the dove. But the other scenes–would
they be equally clear?

I took the first scene that occurred to me, that
in which the ten disks appear in succession, with
the gate in the background. I took a Bible from
the rack of the pew and opened it eagerly at the
Book of Genesis. My knowledge of the Old
Testament was not profound. I turned the leaves
over quickly, scanning each page. I had to look
simply for a passage in which a gate and ten men
figured. I became unconscious of the reverent
.bn 194.png
.pn +1
worshipers about me. I was heedless even of
good form. For half an hour I patiently turned
page after page. I had reached the Book of
Judges, and began to despair. Was this theory
that promised so well to be discarded in its turn
like a dozen others? No; I found the passage.
It proved my theory to be a fact beyond peradventure.
The passage was in the Book of Ruth:

<em>Then went Boaz to the gate and sat him there,
and behold, the kinsman of whom Boaz spoke,
came by, unto whom he said, Ho, such a one,
turn aside, sit down here. And he turned aside
and sat down.</em>

<em>And he took ten men of the elders of the city,
and said, Sit down here. And they sat down.</em>

Nothing could be more clear. The Doge became
Boaz; the ten disks, representing, as we
had thought, the Council of Ten, were the elders
of the city.

I read the story of Samson and the lion. It
was indisputably the scene of the first hour.
The very words were a challenge–a clear statement
in black and white–that he who should
solve the riddle of the clock would have his reward.
And he who failed should have his penalty
to pay–the forfeiture of peace of mind and
content–a bitter enough wage for failure:

<em>And Samson said unto them, I will now put
.bn 195.png
.pn +1
forth a riddle unto you: If ye shall certainly
solve it within seven days of the feast, and find
it out, then will I give you thirty sheets and
thirty changes of raiment.</em>

<em>But if ye solve it not within seven days, then
shall ye give to me thirty sheets and thirty
changes of raiment.</em>

“I will put forth a riddle unto you!” And
a brave riddle it had been. The mad goldsmith
had taken these old Bible stories for his key–a
key that he knew was as imperishable as time
itself, and yet a key that would guard his secret
well. To the Catholic of that day the Bible was
a sealed book.

But if this were true–if these stories were
indeed the key–was the riddle easier of solution?
Would the Bible stories be more readily
understood than the Venetian stories?

The theory of St. Hilary flashed across my
mind. The cipher–that was the clue. In each
of the scenes of the background a certain number
had been mentioned. Thirty changes of raiment.
Seven days. Six steps to the throne. Two lions.
Thus was my second great discovery made.

<em>Each scene from the Bible involved certain
numbers.</em>

I read the story of David and Goliath:

<em>And there went a champion out of the camp of
.bn 196.png
.pn +1
the Philistines named Goliath, whose height was
six cubits and a span.</em>

There were the numbers again; six cubits and
a span.

I could no longer doubt. And now, having
wrested so much of the madman’s secret, having
surprised from him the key, I should, I felt confident,
solve the rest. I was to cut the last thread
that bound this secret to the grave.

Suddenly I became conscious of faces turned
frowningly in my direction. In my excitement
I had, I suppose, rustled the leaves. It was an
unusual sight to see a man of discretion frantically
turning over the leaves of his Bible during
a sermon.

To sit through the sermon was impossible. I
must get a breath of fresh air. I would wait for
Jacqueline outside.

I walked to the quay of the Grand Canal. I
scanned the sweep of the palaces, from the Salute
to the Rialto Bridge. To which of them would
these new clues lead?

I walked back to the church. The sermon was
droning slumberously on. I wandered restlessly
down the Calle San Rio. I found myself at the
steamboat landing. The little steamer was discharging
its quota of passengers. I leaped
aboard. My desire to look on the photographs
.bn 197.png
.pn +1
was intense. I wished to verify the other scenes.
I wished to confound St. Hilary with my discovery.

Not until the steamer was half-way across the
Giudecca did I remember, with a shock of dismay,
my appointment with Jacqueline.

I persuaded myself that I had time to look at
the photographs just once; I could hurriedly recount
my wonderful discovery to St. Hilary; I
could be rowed across to the Molo in three minutes,
and be at the church in another ten. If I
failed Jacqueline, she would forgive me when
she knew the extraordinary circumstances under
which I had deserted her. Had she not regretted,
with a hint of reproach in her words that still
rankled, that my search for the casket had been
so fruitless of results? And had she not said
that the duke was hunting for it without a moment’s
rest? Then there was no time to be lost.

I did fail Jacqueline. St. Hilary was not in
my rooms, and I waited for him. The temptation
to triumph over him proved too sweet. I
was not the first man to risk his precious birthright
of love for a mess of pottage.
.bn 198.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XX

.sp 2
Two hours had passed since I left the church.
St. Hilary and I had spent the time in a diligent
study of the Bible. The result confirmed my
theory beyond a doubt. With the exception of
the scenes of the fifth and tenth hours, we had
identified them all as Bible scenes. We had also
found that in each story certain numbers were
mentioned.

“To tell which are the significant numbers,
that is the question,” said St. Hilary. “In two
or three of the stories, at least, more than one
set are mentioned. How can we be sure which
numbers count, and which do not?”

“We can not be sure, I suppose,” I replied
thoughtfully. “We can only guess. But at least
we may make a reasonable guess. The goldsmith
had some method in choosing them. What
would be the most obvious?”

“That he should select the numbers that
really counted in the various stories,” replied St.
Hilary.

“I have observed that the important numbers
are invariably mentioned in the first part of the
.bn 199.png
.pn +1
story. We may go on that assumption to begin
with, at any rate. Our search for the landmark
of the second hour ought to begin from the Piazzetta,
where the first landmark stands–that is,
the lion of San Marco. Now our first numbers
are 7, 30, 30. If we interpret those rightly, we
shall find ourselves at the second landmark.
Thence we may start for the third.”

“But the meaning of those numbers,” grumbled
St. Hilary, “is extremely doubtful. They
may be added to, or subtracted from, or divided
or multiplied by others, and the landmark of the
second hour is veiled in complete obscurity. If
it were the landmark of the fourth hour, the
House of the Camel, we should know what to
look for.”

“But it is not,” I said impatiently. “Your
precious landmark is quite useless by itself, because
we have not been able to identify the Bible
story of the fifth hour, and so we are ignorant
of the numbers that will lead us to the landmark
of the sixth. We are compelled to start at the
first hour. From that point we go on to the
second, and from the second to the third. As to
the gap in the fifth hour, we won’t attempt to
jump that until we come to it.”

The little man yawned. His dogged skepticism
was maddening. The fact is, he resented my
.bn 200.png
.pn +1
having been so fortunate as to make the great
discovery. Because he had not made it himself,
or helped to make it, he sulked and made endless
objections.

“How do you propose to interpret the first
numbers, 7, 30, 30?” he asked.

“Well,” I answered patiently, “say that they
represent blocks of buildings. We go down the
Grand Canal until seven blocks are passed. If
we took the seventh canal to our left, and continued
up that canal until thirty blocks had been
passed––”

“We should find ourselves somewhere out in
the lagoon,” sneered St. Hilary.

“If we passed seven blocks on our right, then,
proceeding up the seventh canal until thirty
blocks were passed, took the junction of the two
canals at this point for a new start until thirty
more blocks were passed, where should we find
ourselves?”

St. Hilary consulted the map of Venice that
lay before him.

“You are a little obscure, my dear Hume.
But, so far as I can make it out, after you had
passed your sixty little canals, if you turned to
the left you would find yourself in the Jewish
quarter. If you turned to the right, in the fishermen’s
quarter. You may be sure that da Sestos
.bn 201.png
.pn +1
was not quite so mad as to hide his casket in a
part of the city that would be subject to demolition.
You will have to try again.”

“Thirty changes of raiment and thirty sheets,”
I mused. “Thirty plus thirty; why not the sixtieth
palace down the Grand Canal, either left
or right?”

“Within seven days,” quoted St. Hilary, closing
his eyes.

“I had forgotten the seven days,” I admitted.
“Well, then, why not the fifty-third palace?”

“Why the fifty-third?” demanded St. Hilary
in a bored tone.

“Within seven of sixty ought to mean fifty-three,”
I said quickly.

St. Hilary opened his eyes. A look of interest
dawned in them. He drew toward him an old
map of Venice, La Nuova Pianta di Venezia, it
was called, and was published in 1689. It contained
an interesting chart on which were marked
all the palaces of Venice existing at that time.
He began to count these palaces carefully, going
down the Grand Canal toward the Rialto
Bridge.

“The fifty-third palace is the Palazzo Chettechi.
Look in that French monograph, Les
Palais de Venise Moderne. See if it is mentioned
there.”
.bn 202.png
.pn +1

I turned hurriedly to the index.

“Yes, it is mentioned. But, confound it, the
palace was torn down and rebuilt in 1805.”

“And down with it tumbles your cunning little
house of cards,” commented the dealer cynically.

“After all, that solution was too obvious to be
reasonable,” I retorted cheerfully, though I felt
the disappointment keenly. “But look here, St.
Hilary”–I was consulting the Bible again–“there
are four thirties mentioned. Perhaps the
second couple of thirties has some significance.
Does the fifty-third palace bring us to a corner
of the Grand Canal, or should we find ourselves
in the middle of the block?”

“We should find ourselves at the junction of
the Grand Canal and the Rio di Lucca.”

“Good! And if you counted sixty palaces up
the Rio di Lucca, will that old chart tell the palace
you would arrive at?”

“The Palazzo Giuliano.”

“The Palazzo Giuliano might contain our
landmark on its wall just as well as any
other.”

“It might,” he cried, consulting the monograph
on the palaces of modern Venice again, “only it
happens that the façade of that palace was rebuilt
in the eighteenth century. Again your little
.bn 203.png
.pn +1
house of cards crumbles about your ears, my
dear Hume.”

I stared down at the table. In what other way
might I read a meaning into the numbers? I
picked up an envelope and began to toy with it
unconsciously. It was addressed to St. Hilary.
It was literally covered with erasures and directions,
and had followed him half around the
world. But it had found him at last, though
some of the directions were of the vaguest. We
ought to be as clever as a postmaster. Aside
from the extraneous aids of the directory, what
methods would a postmaster use?

Mechanically I began to trace the ordinary
and palpable clues to the destination of any letter.
First of all, there is the state or country.
That is as vague as the earth itself. But the
state is narrowed down to the city in the state,
and the city to the street––

“I believe I have found a solution that will
hold water at last, St. Hilary!” I cried.

He blinked at me skeptically.

“Let us hear it by all means.”

“Take the address on the envelope. It has
suggested a possible solution to the numbers.
First of all, there is the country. The country is
narrowed down to the city of the country. Next
comes the number of the street in the city. After
.bn 204.png
.pn +1
that the house in the street. In other words, the
direction of an envelope is narrowed to more and
more defined limits.”

“An extremely accurate but not a startlingly
original presentation of facts, dear boy. The
connection between this envelope, for instance,
and the da Sestos casket?”

“Call Venice the state; the city, the Grand
Canal. Your street will then be the seventh
canal; the number of the street will be the house
of the landmark.”

St. Hilary’s dark eyes snapped. He was thoroughly
interested at last. He drew toward him
the map of Venice again. He pushed it away
with an exclamation of disgust.

“Ingenious again, but not conclusive. The
seventh canal flowing into the Grand Canal is a
<lang=fr><em>cul-de-sac</em></lang>. Its length is not a hundred yards,
and it leads merely to the Campo San Stefano.”

“You are mistaken,” I said calmly. “You are
counting the ditch that surrounds the Giardino
Reale. The seventh canaletto is the Rio di Bocca.
And the sixtieth palace from the junction of the
Rio di Bocca and the Grand Canal will be the
house of the landmark. What palace is that?
Don’t tell me that that is torn down.”

“No, this one exists. It is called the Palazzo
Fortunato. Come, it is time for us to do something
.bn 205.png
.pn +1
more strenuous than talking. We will test
your theory, and I think it a fairly reasonable
one at last. But first of all, a bite at Florian’s.
It is three o’clock. We may get no dinner.”

I had unconsciously taken the lead since my
great discovery. Now I hesitated. Though I
had broken my tryst with Jacqueline, I had intended
seeing her this afternoon before we actually
began our search. But I could not let St.
Hilary begin his explorations without me. A
few hours sooner or later, I persuaded myself,
would not make much difference.

I know now how specious were my arguments.
A woman’s love is not to be treated lightly. It
is the most sacred and precious thing in the
world, and she knows that it is. It does not come
and go at one’s beck and call. It burns brightly
so long as the flame is fed; to quench that flame
is dangerous, and it is not always easy to revive
it.

“I am quite ready to go with you,” I said
soberly. “My gondolier is waiting below. We
will let him take us to the Molo and then dismiss
him. We want no witnesses or possible spies.”

“Excellent,” he murmured. “And bring
along your Bible; that must be our chart and
compass in our voyage of discovery.”
.bn 206.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXI

.sp 2
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
.bn 207.png
.pn +1
that 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.

“<lang=it><em>E dove?</em></lang>” demanded the gondolier, after we
had taken our seats.

“<lang=it><em>Canalazzo</em></lang>,” I cried, “<lang=it><em>e presto, molto, molto
presto.</em></lang>”

“<lang=it><em>Si, si, signore</em></lang>,” 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
.bn 208.png
.pn +1
Venice, 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 <lang=fr><em>père de famille</em></lang>; 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
.bn 209.png
.pn +1
hesitated, 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 <lang=it><em>canaletti</em></lang>
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 façade
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
.bn 210.png
.pn +1
sleeve. 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
.bn 211.png
.pn +1
evil, 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.
.bn 212.png
.pn +1
I 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:

<em>And within three days they could not declare
the riddle.</em>

“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.”

<em>And there went forth a champion out of the
camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, whose
height was six cubits and a span.</em>

“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.
.bn 213.png
.pn +1

“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.
.bn 214.png
.pn +1

“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.
.bn 215.png
.pn +1

“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
.bn 216.png
.pn +1
hour 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:

<em>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.</em>

“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
.bn 217.png
.pn +1
to 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
.bn 218.png
.pn +1
Doge 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:

<em>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?</em>

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
.bn 219.png
.pn +1
dial. 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
.bn 220.png
.pn +1
house. 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.”
.bn 221.png
.pn +1

“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.
.bn 222.png
.pn +1

“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
Cæsarini. If you are architects, you ought to
see that palace. It is full of interest.”
.bn 223.png
.pn +1

“The Cæsarini 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 Cæsarini
was the most powerful in Venice, as it still is one
of the richest, the Prince Cæsarini 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
<lang=fr><em>bal masqué</em></lang> 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. <lang=it><em>Buona sera.</em></lang>”

“<lang=it><em>Buona sera, signori.</em></lang>”
.bn 224.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXII

.sp 2
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
.bn 225.png
.pn +1
must 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
.bn 226.png
.pn +1
should 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
.bn 227.png
.pn +1
occurred 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
.bn 228.png
.pn +1
the 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 mediæval 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.
.bn 229.png
.pn +1

“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 <pm corr 223.5 impossible. 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 <em>had</em> 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
.bn 230.png
.pn +1
the 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.
.bn 231.png
.pn +1
I 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.
.bn 232.png
.pn +1
You 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 <em>was</em> 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,
.bn 233.png
.pn +1
the 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
.bn 234.png
.pn +1
judged 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
.bn 235.png
.pn +1
the medallions was the loves of the gods in
silver-gilt, <lang=fr><em>repoussé</em></lang>. 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
.bn 236.png
.pn +1
that 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.”
.bn 237.png
.pn +1

She 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.
.bn 238.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIII

.sp 2
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
.bn 239.png
.pn +1
dilettante 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,
.bn 240.png
.pn +1
was 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 <lang=it><em>buona
lira</em></lang>.” I paused suggestively.

He was voluble in his gratitude. Heaven was
witness that he had been faithful and honest.
.bn 241.png
.pn +1

“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.
.bn 242.png
.pn +1
He 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.”
.bn 243.png
.pn +1

“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 Cæsarini, 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 façade 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
.bn 244.png
.pn +1
it 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 Cæsarini 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
.bn 245.png
.pn +1
was 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 Cæsarini gives
the famous <lang=fr><em>bal masqué</em></lang>. 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
.bn 246.png
.pn +1
our 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
<lang=it><em>Inglesi</em></lang> and <lang=it><em>forrestieri</em></lang>,” 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
.bn 247.png
.pn +1
quite 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
.bn 248.png
.pn +1
methods 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.
.bn 249.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIV

.sp 2
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.
.bn 250.png
.pn +1

And so, seated stiffly upright, not to crush
our gorgeous costumes, we started late in the
evening for the ball at the Cæsarini 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 Cæsarini
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
.bn 251.png
.pn +1
find 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
.bn 252.png
.pn +1
and 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
.bn 253.png
.pn +1
proportions. Along its entire length at intervals
were placed busts of some great ancestor of the
House of Cæsarini. 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 Cæsarini
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 Cæsarini 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
.bn 254.png
.pn +1
fled 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
<lang=it><em>camerini</em></lang>. 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.”
.bn 255.png
.pn +1

I 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?”

“<em>And in the seven and twentieth day of the
month was the earth dried</em>,” 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.
.bn 256.png
.pn +1
The 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.
.bn 257.png
.pn +1
Apollo 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
.bn 258.png
.pn +1
to 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.
.bn 259.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXV

.sp 2
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
.bn 260.png
.pn +1
palace 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.
.bn 261.png
.pn +1
Could 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,
.bn 262.png
.pn +1
but 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
.bn 263.png
.pn +1
there 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
.bn 264.png
.pn +1
her 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
.bn 265.png
.pn +1
for 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 <em>you</em> had not interfered.”

“But when once you know what I know, when
I have told you that he is a thief––”
.bn 266.png
.pn +1

“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
.bn 267.png
.pn +1
a 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.
.bn 268.png
.pn +1
There 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.
.bn 269.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVI

.sp 2
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.
.bn 270.png
.pn +1
There 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
.bn 271.png
.pn +1
not 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?
.bn 272.png
.pn +1

“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
.bn 273.png
.pn +1
it 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.
.bn 274.png
.pn +1

“<em>And Joseph said, Behold, I have dreamed a
dream, and behold, the sun and moon and the
eleven stars made obeisance to me</em>,” 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.
.bn 275.png
.pn +1

“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
.bn 276.png
.pn +1
of 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
<lang=it><em>sala grande</em></lang> 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
.bn 277.png
.pn +1
hidden 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
.bn 278.png
.pn +1
myself 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.
.bn 279.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVII

.sp 2
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
.bn 280.png
.pn +1
than 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.
.bn 281.png
.pn +1

My 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
.bn 282.png
.pn +1
to 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
.bn 283.png
.pn +1
was 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
.bn 284.png
.pn +1
thing 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.
.bn 285.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVIII

.sp 2
“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. <lang=fr><em>Par example</em></lang>, you are
waiting for a friend, <lang=fr><em>n’est ce pas</em></lang>? Oh, I do not
.bn 286.png
.pn +1
mean 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
.bn 287.png
.pn +1
him 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.

“<em>Is</em> 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.”
.bn 288.png
.pn +1

“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 <em>me</em> 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.
.bn 289.png
.pn +1
“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.
.bn 290.png
.pn +1

The 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.”
.bn 291.png
.pn +1

“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
.bn 292.png
.pn +1
for 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[oe]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
.bn 293.png
.pn +1
heard 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.
.bn 294.png
.pn +1

I 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.”
.bn 295.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIX

.sp 2
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.”
.bn 296.png
.pn +1

“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,”
.bn 297.png
.pn +1
I 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?”
.bn 298.png
.pn +1

“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.
.bn 299.png
.pn +1
I 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 <lang=fr><em>en
cabochon</em></lang>. 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.
.bn 300.png
.pn +1

“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 <lang=fr><em>bal
masqué</em></lang> at the Cæsarini Palace, early this morning,
was assaulted by ruffians near the Calle
Bianca Madonna, and knocked insensible. He
.bn 301.png
.pn +1
was 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
.bn 302.png
.pn +1
took 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.
.bn 303.png
.pn +1

“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
.bn 304.png
.pn +1
eye 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
.bn 305.png
.pn +1
those 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.
.bn 306.png
.pn +1




.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXX

.sp 2
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
.bn 307.png
.pn +1
a 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,
.bn 308.png
.pn +1
“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
.bn 309.png
.pn +1
evidence 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.

.sp 4
.ce
THE END
.pb
<target id='endnote'>
.dv class='tnotes'

.ce
<l>Transcriber’s Note</l>

The hyphenation of compound words which occur on a line break are
removed or retained based on other instances.

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.

.ta l:8 l:46 l:12 w=90%
<pm cref 21.19> | I said impatiently[.] | Added.
<pm cref 37.25> | Sudd[d]enly this wall gave way | Removed.
<pm cref 38.3>  | and Lu[i]gi appeared, | Inserted.
<pm cref 114.8> | Jacqueline had added her urgen[t] telegram | Added.
<pm cref 140.8> | we can amuse ourselves with our clock.[”] | Added.
<pm cref 223.5> | he would undertake even the impossible.[”] | Added.
.ta-
.dv-