“Ah, it is my friend Hume,” he purred. “I had thought that Mr. Hume had
left Venice.”
I ignored the left hand he extended negligently toward me. He had as
many changes of front as a Russian diplomatist. Then I laughed. His cool
effrontery was downright amusing.
“And why should I have left Venice?” I asked easily. “Did you think you
had frightened me off last night?”
“Ah, ha,” he twirled his mustache with the utmost good-nature, “I know
my friend Hume too well to think that he is so easily frightened. But it
is a pity that your wit, my friend, is not as great as your courage.”
“And how is my stupidity manifesting itself just at present?”
He threw back his head and laughed silently–at least, insofar as a cat
can laugh. Then he lowered himself into a chair by my side, leaned
forward, and tapped me lightly on the shoulder.
“I am clairvoyant. _Par example_, you are waiting for a friend, _n’est
ce pas_? Oh, I do not 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 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.
“_Is_ it so strange?” queried the duke, and again he tapped me on the
shoulder. “Come, come, Mr. Hume, have I not said that I am clairvoyant?”
“Your proofs have not been convincing. Suppose that you give me a better
illustration of this remarkable gift of yours.”
“Well, then, I could have told you yesterday that your friend would bear
watching.”
“You seem to know a good deal about the character of Mr. St. Hilary,” I
said, and rose from my seat with a yawn.
The duke rose and took my arm. He had not yet done with me, it appeared.
“You walk toward the Piazza? Permit me to walk with you. Yes, yes, I
know a good deal of your friend’s character. We have had many
interesting talks together before now; and, let me tell you, Mr. St.
Hilary did me the honor of bidding _me_ good-by.”
“And is that the reason you are so happy?” I asked, staring at him. My
question had been put seriously. For the first time this afternoon I was
interested in his answer.
“So happy?” he retorted, shrugging his shoulders; then, with apparent
frankness, “But I am to see Mr. St. Hilary again. Yes; I am to join him
presently at Naples, perhaps, or Paris, or London. By the way, you have
yet three days in which to prove me a liar,” he added good-humoredly.
“And three days are a long time sometimes,” I said curtly. “Good
afternoon; I take a gondola here to my rooms.”
“Adieu,” he purred, but he still held my arm. “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.
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.”
“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 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 manœuvers 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 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.
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.”