“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.
“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.”
“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 _chef d’œuvre_. 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 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 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 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 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?”
“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 _chef d’œuvre_ 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 _tambour de flacque_–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 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?”
“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.