approaching cautiously, in order to secure him while he was quiet, when
they saw, to their horror, two human legs and feet protruding from the
object which he had dragged forth.
"Why, it's the second-hand dealer; it's Z. Pelham!" said Peter, in fresh
excitement. "I know his arctics. Bring the lamp, Barly. Quick!"
The two ladies came nearer, keeping one eye upon Ercole. Peter and Sir
William with some difficulty cut the rope, and unwound two woollen
coverlids and a sheet. Within, almost suffocated, with his hands tied
behind him, was the dealer.
"I suppose _he_ did this!" whispered Lady Kay to Miss Senter, her pink
face white, as she indicated the motionless gondolier.
Sir William lifted the dealer's head, while Peter loosened his collar.
"Now will Excellencies look for Giorgio," muttered Ercole, without
changing his position.
"He says now will you look for Giorgio," translated Lady Kay. "That he
_tells_ his crimes shows that he really _is_ mad!" she added, in a
whisper.
"No; I think he has come to for the moment, and that's why he tells,"
said Peter, hastily rubbing Z. Pelham's chest. "Ask him where we shall
look, Barly; ask while he's lucid."
"Where must we look for Giorgio, Ercole?" quavered Miss Senter, her
Italian coming out with the oddest pronunciation.
"Back stairs," answered the gondolier.
"Back stairs, he says," translated Lady Kay.
"There are no back stairs," replied Peter.
"I'll put this coverlid under his back. That will make him breathe
better," said the Englishman, his sympathies roused by the forlorn
plight of the little dealer, whose carefully strapped arctic shoes gave
ironical emphasis to his helplessness.
Meanwhile Miss Senter, saying "Yes, there _are_ stairs," had run across
the pavement with her lamp, found the door at the back of the hall, and
opened it. Z. Pelham began to breathe more regularly, although he had
not yet opened his eyes. Sir William drew him farther away from the
gondolier, and then he and Peter hastened across and looked up the
spiral. "It goes to the attics," explained Miss Senter.
"You two stand here at the bottom with one lamp, and Sir William and I
will go up with the other," said Peter. "Keep your eye on Ercole, Barly,
and if he so much as _moves_, come right up and join us."
"Wait an instant," said the Englishman. "Stay here with Mr. Senter,
Gertrude." Making a detour so as not to rouse the gondolier, he entered
the antiquity-dealer's show-room and tried to open the outer door. But
it was locked, and the key was not there. "No use," he said, coming
hurriedly back; "I had hoped to get help from outside to watch him while
we go up. Now remember, Gertrude, you and Miss Senter are to come up and
join us _instantly_ if he leaves his place." And then he and Peter
ascended the winding steps, carrying one of the lamps. Round and round
went the gleam of their light, and the two ladies at the bottom,
standing with their skirts caught up ready to run, watched the still
form of the gondolier in the distance, visible in the gleam of the
candle burning in the show-room. It seemed an hour. But a full minute
had not gone when Peter's voice above cried out:
"It's Giorgio! Good God! Killed! Bring up the other light."
And the two ladies rushed up together. There on the landing lay the poor
old cook, his eyes closed, his face ghastly, his white jacket deeply
stained with blood. Miss Senter, who was really attached to the old man,
began to cry.
"He isn't quite dead," said Peter, who had been listening for the heart.
"But we must get him out of this icy place. Then we'll tie up Ercoly--we
can use that rope--and after he is secured, I can go for help. Here, you
take his head and shoulders, Sir William; you are the strongest. And
I'll take his body. Barly can take the feet."
"It will be difficult," said the Englishman. "These steep stairs--"
But Peter, when roused, was a veritable little lion. "Come on," he said;
"we can do it."
"Please go down first and see if Ercole is still quiet," begged Miss
Senter of Lady Kay. And the Englishwoman, who now had both lamps, went
down and came back in thirty seconds; she never knew how she did it. "He
has not stirred," she said. And then old Giorgio was borne down, and out
to the brilliantly lighted court beyond.
"Now," said Peter, whose face was bathed with great drops of
perspiration, "we'll first secure him," and he indicated Ercole by
pointing his thumb backward over his shoulder towards the water-story,
"and then I'll go for a doctor and the police."
But as he spoke, coming out of the door upon his hands and knees,
appeared Z. Pelham, who, as soon as he saw the cook's prostrate body,
called back, hoarsely, in Italian: "Ercole, get my brandy-flask."
"Oh, don't call him!" said Lady Kay, in terror, clapping a fold of her
skirt tightly over the dealer's mouth and holding it there. "He is
mad--quite mad!"
Mr. Pelham collapsed.
"Good heavens! Gertrude, don't suffocate the poor creature a second
time," said Sir William, pulling his wife away.
Z. Pelham, released, raised his head. "Ercole has been bad beat, and
that makes him not genteel," he explained. "Ercole, bring my
brandy-flask," he called again, in Italian, and the effort he made to
break through his hoarseness brought out the words in a sudden wild
yell. "My voice a little deranged is," he added, apologetically, in
English.
They could now hear the steps of the gondolier within, and the ladies
moved to a distance as he appeared, walking unsteadily, the flask in his
hand. "Not dead?" he said, trying to see Giorgio. But his eyes closed
convulsively, and as soon as the dealer had taken the flask, down he
went, or half fell, on the pavement as before, with his head thrown
forward over his knees. Sir William placed himself promptly by his side,
while Peter ran within to get the rope. Z. Pelham, uncorking the flask,
poured a little brandy between Giorgio's pale lips. "You have all
mistake," he said to Sir William as he did this. "Ercole was bad beat by
a third partee who has done it all--me and he and this died cook; a
third partee was done it all." And he chafed the cook's temples with
brandy.
"A third party?" said Peter, who had returned with the rope. "Who?"
"I know not; they knocked me from behind. It was lightning to me, in
_my_ head also," answered Z. Pelham, going on with his chafing.
"Come here, Barly," said Peter, taking command. "Say what I tell you.
Don't be afraid; Sir William and I will grab him if he stirs. Say,
'Ercoly, who hurt you?'"
"Ercole, who hurt you?" said Miss Senter, tremulously.
"_Non so. Un demonio_," answered the gondolier, his head still on his
knees.
"He says he doesn't know. A demon," said Lady Kay.
"Ask when it happened."
"It was after he had taken the presents from the tree," translated Lady
Kay again. "He was struck, dragged down the back stairs, gagged, and
left in the antiquity-room. He has only just now been able to free
himself."
"How could he act the clown, then?" pursued Peter.
"He says he hasn't been a clown or seen a clown. Oh, Peter, it was some
one else disguised! Who could it have been?" cried Miss Senter, running
away as if to fly up the staircase, and then in her terror running back
again.
The cook's eyes had now opened. "He says see what is stoled," said Mr.
Pelham, administering more brandy. Mr. Pelham was seated, tailor
fashion, on the pavement, his feet in their arctics under him.
"Giorgio knows something about it, too," said Peter. "Ask him, Barly."
But Miss Senter was incapable of speaking; she had hidden her face on
Lady Kay's shoulder, shuddering. The clown with whom she had talked, who
had danced all the evening with the children, was an assassin! A strange
and savage murderer!
"I'll do it," said the Englishman. And bending over Giorgio, he asked,
in correct, stiff Italian: "Do you know who hurt you?"
"A tall, dark man. I never saw him before," answered the cook, or rather
his lips formed those words. "He stabbed me after he had struck down
Ercole."
"Now he is again gone," soliloquized Z. Pelham, as Giorgio's eyes
closed; "I have fear this time he is truly died!" And he chafed the
cook's temples anew.
"It's all clear now," said Peter, "and Ercoly isn't mad; only hurt in
some way. So I'll go for help at once."
"Oh, Peter, you always get lost!" moaned his sister.
And it was true that the Consul almost invariably lost his way in the
labyrinth of chinks behind the palace.
"I'll go," said the Englishman. "It's not very late" (he looked at his
watch); "I shall be sure to find some one."
"You must let me go with you, my dear," urged Lady Kay.
In three minutes they were back with two men. "I've brought these two,
and there's a doctor coming. And I sent word to the police," said the
Englishman.
And following very soon came a half-dressed youth, a young American
doctor, who had been roused by somebody. The cook was borne up the
stairway and into the salon, where the chandeliers were shedding their
soft radiance calmly, and where all the fairy-lamps were still burning
on the Christmas-tree; for only twenty minutes had passed since the host
and his guests had left the room. Behind the group of the two men from
outside, who with Peter and the doctor were carrying Giorgio, came Sir
William leading the gondolier, who seemed now entirely blind, while Z.
Pelham followed, last of all, on his hands and knees.
"This old man has a deep cut--done with a knife; he has lost a good deal
of blood; pretty bad case," said the doctor. "Your gondolier has been
dreadfully beaten about the head, but it won't kill him; he is young and
strong. This third man seems to be only sprained. Get me something for
bandages and compresses, and bring cold water."
"Get towels, Barly," said the Consul.
"Oh, Peter, I'm afraid to go," said Miss Senter, faintly. "The man may
still be hidden here somewhere. And I know he has murdered Carmela and
the other servants, too!"
Peter ran to his own chamber, and came back with a pile of towels, a
sheet from his bed, a large jug of water, and a scissors. "Now, doctor,
you stay here and do what you can for all three," he said, as he hurried
round the great drawing-room, locking all the doors but one. "And the
ladies will stay here with you. The rest of us will search the whole
apartment immediately! Lock this last door as soon as we're out, will
you?"
"Oh, Peter, don't go!" cried his sister. "Let those two men do it. Or
wait for the police."
"My dear, pray consider," said Lady Kay to her husband; "if any one _is_
hidden, it is some desperate character--"
But the Englishman and Peter were already gone, and the ladies were left
with the doctor, who, comprehending everything quickly, locked the last
door, and then hurried back to the cook. Old Giorgio's mind was now
wandering; he muttered incoherently, and seemed to be suffering greatly.
The gondolier, his head enveloped in wet towels, was lying in a stupor
on one of the sofas. Z. Pelham quietly tied up his own sprained ankles
with a portion of the torn sheet, and then assisted with much
intelligence in the making of the bandages which the doctor needed for
Giorgio.
Sir William, Peter, and the two men from outside began with the kitchen;
no one. The pantries and store-rooms; no one. The supper-room; no one.
The bedrooms; no one. The anterooms and small drawing-room; no one. As
the whole house was still brightly lighted, this did not take long. They
now crossed to four rooms on the north side; no one. Then came a large
store-room for linen. This was not lighted, so they took in a lamp; no
one.
"There's a second door here," said Sir William, perceiving one of those
masked flat portals common in Italy, which are painted or frescoed so
exactly like the wall that they seem a part of it.
"It opens into a little recess only a foot deep," said Peter, going on
with the lamp to the second store-room. "No one could possibly hide
there. Now after we have finished on this side, there is only the
wood-room left; that is off by itself in a wing."
The Englishman had accompanied his host. But having a strong bent
towards thoroughness, he was not satisfied, and he quietly returned
alone and opened that masked door. There, flattened against the wall,
not clearly visible in the semi-darkness, was the outline of a woman's
figure. His exclamation brought back the others with the lamp. It was
Carmela.
She stood perfectly still for an instant or two, so motionless, and with
such bright eyes staring at them, that she looked like a wax figure.
Then she sprang from her hiding-place and made a swift rush down the
corridor towards the outer door. They caught her. She fought and
struggled dreadfully, still without a sound. So frantic were her
writhings that her apron and cap were torn away, and the braids of her
hair fell down and finally fell off, leaving only, to Peter's
astonishment, a few locks of thin white hair in their place. It took the
four men to hold her, for she threw herself from side to side like a
wild-cat; she even dragged the four as far as the anteroom nearest the
drawing-room in her desperate efforts to reach that outer door. But
here, as she felt herself at last over-powered, a terrible shriek burst
from her, her face became distorted, her eyes rolled up, and froth
appeared on her lips.
The shriek, an unmistakably feminine one, had brought the doctor and two
ladies from the drawing-room.
"A fit!" exclaimed the doctor as soon as he saw the froth. "Here, get
open that tight dress." He unbuttoned a few buttons of the black bodice,
and tore off the rest. "Gracious! corsets like steel." He took out his
knife, and hastily cutting the cashmere across the shoulders, he got his
hand in and severed the corset strings. "Now, ladies, just help me to
get her out of this harness."
And with trembling fingers Lady Kay and Miss Senter gave their aid, and
after a moment the whole edifice--for it was an edifice--sank to the
floor. What was left was an old, old woman, small and withered, her
feeble chest rising and falling in convulsions under her coarse chemise,
and the rest of her little person scantily covered with a patched,
poverty-stricken under-skirt.
"Oh, _poor_ creature!" said Lady Kay, the tears filling her eyes as all
the ribs of the meagre, wasted body showed in the straining, spasmodic
effort of the lungs to get breath.
"Bring something to cover her, Barly," said Peter.
And Miss Senter, forgetting her fears, ran to her room, and brought back
the first thing she could find--a large white shawl.
"All right now; she's coming to," said the doctor.
The convulsions gradually ceased, and Carmela's eyes opened. She looked
at them all in silence as she sat, muffled in the shawl, where they had
placed her. Finally she spoke. "The Consul is too late," she said, with
mock respect. "The Consuless also. Did they admire the dancing of the
clown? A fine fellow that clown! You need not hold me," she added to the
two men from outside, who were acting as guards. "I have nothing more to
do. My son is safe, and that was all I cared for. They will never find
him; he is far from here now. He is very clever, and he has, besides, to
help him, all the money which the Consuless so kindly provided for him
by keeping it in a secret drawer, whose 'secret' every Italian not an
idiot knows. But the Consuless has always had a singular self-conceit.
I had only to mention that extra man with the musicians--poor little
Tonio the tailor it was--and she swallowed him down whole. I could have
got away myself if I had cared to. But I waited, in order to keep back
the alarm as long as possible; I waited. Oh yes, I helped all the ladies
to put on their cloaks; I helped this English ladyship to put on hers
last of all, as she knows. When their Excellencies went down to the
water-story, I then tried to go; but I found that they could still see
the staircase, so I came back. What matters it? They may do with me what
they please. For myself I care not. My son is safe." On her old cheeks,
under the falling white hair, were still the faint pink tinges of rouge,
and from beneath the wretched petticoat came the two young-looking
high-heeled shoes. She folded her thin hands on her lap, and refused to
say more.
Assunta and Beppa were found in the wood-room, gagged and bound like the
others, but not hurt. And in the morning the Consul's gondola was
discovered floating out with the tide, and within it Andrea in the same
helpless state. The man, who was an ex-convict, a burglar, suspected of
worse crimes, after committing the murder at the cafe, had fled to the
palace. Here he and his intrepid little mother had invented and carried
out the whole scheme in the one hour which had followed the distribution
of the presents from the tree, before the dancing began. Carmela had
even left the house to obtain a clown's costume from a dealer in
masquerade dresses who lived near by. And she had herself opened for her
son's use the disused door which led to the spiral steps.
That son was never caught. His mother, who had worked for him
indefatigably through her whole life--worked so hard that her hands were
worn almost to claws--who had supported him and supplied him, who had
made herself young and active like a girl, though she was seventy-four,
in order to be able to send him money--his mother, who had allowed
herself nothing in the world but the few smart clothes necessary for her
disguise, who was absolutely honest, but who had stolen for him three
thousand francs from the secret drawer, and had stood by and aided him
when he beat, stabbed, and gagged her fellow-servants--this mother was
not arrested. She should have been, of course. But somehow, very
strangely, she escaped from the palace before morning.
Poor old Giorgio was never able to work again. But as Peter pensioned
him handsomely, he led an easy life, while Ercole became a magnate among
gondoliers.
It was not until three years afterwards, in Rochester, New York, that
Peter, surrounded by Z. Pelham's entire collection (which he had
purchased, though thinking it hideous, at large prices), confessed to
his sister that he had connived at Carmela's escape. "Somehow I couldn't
stand it, Barly. That thin white hair and those poor old arms of hers,
and that wretched, wasted, gasping little chest--in prison!"
IN VENICE
"Yes, we came over again in February, and have been here in Venice since
the last of March. For some reasons I was sorry to come back--one _is_
so much more comfortable at home! What I have suffered in these
wretchedly cold houses over here words, Mr. Blake, can never express.
For in England, you know, they consider fifty-eight Fahrenheit quite
warm enough for their drawing-rooms, while here in Italy--well, one
never _is_ so cold, I think, as in a warm climate. Yes, we should have
been more comfortable, as far as _that_ goes, in my own house in New
York, reading all those delightful books on Art in a properly warmed
atmosphere (and I must say a properly warmed spirit too), and looking at
photographs of the pictures (you can have them as large as you like, you
know), instead of freezing our feet over the originals, which half the
time the eyes of a lynx could not see. But it is not always winter, of
course. And then I have lived over here so long that I have, it seems,
acquired foreign ways that are very unpopular at home. You may smile,
and it _is_ too ridiculous; but it is so. For instance, last summer we
went to Carley Ledge (you know Carley; pretty little place), and we
found out afterwards that the people came near mobbing us! Not exactly
that, of course, but they took the most violent dislike to us; and why?
It is too comical. Because we had innocently treated Carley as we treat
a pretty village over here. One lady said, and, I am told, with
indignation, that we had been stopping, 'more than once, right in the
main street, and standing there, in that _public_ place, to look at a
cloud passing over the mountain!' And another reported that she had
herself discovered us 'sitting on the _grass_, no farther away from the
main street than the open space in front of Deacon Seymour's, just as
though it was out in the country!' That 'out in the country' is rather
good, isn't it? Always that poor little main street!"
"Still, I think, on the whole, that the cold houses are worse than the
village comments," replied Mrs. Marcy's visitor. "A New-Yorker I know, a
confirmed European too, always goes home to spend the three months of
winter. When he comes back in the spring his English friends say, 'I
hear you have had so many degrees of frost over there--fancy!'--meaning,
perhaps, zero or under. To which he assents, but always inflexibly goes
back. They look upon him as a kind of Esquimau. But how does Miss Marcy
like exile?"
"Oh, Claudia is very fond of Italy. You have not seen her, by-the-way,
since she was a child, and she is now twenty. Do you find her altered?"
"Greatly."
"At home she was never thought pretty--when she was younger, I mean. She
was thought too--too--vigorous is perhaps the best word; she had not
that graceful slenderness one expects to see in a young girl. But over
here, I notice, the opinion seems to be different," continued the lady,
half questioningly. "And, of course, too, she has improved."
"My dear Miss Sophy--improved? Miss Marcy is a wonderfully beautiful
woman."
"Yes, yes, I know; Mr. Lenox thinks so too, I believe," answered Mrs.
Marcy, half pleased, half irritated. "It seems she is a Venetian--that
is, of the sixteenth century; and dressed in dark-green velvet, with
those great puffed Venetian sleeves coming down over her knuckles, a
gold chain, and her hair closely braided, she would be, they tell me, a
perfect Bonifazio. In fact, Mr. Lenox is painting her as one. Only he
has to imagine the dress."
Mrs. Marcy was a widow, and fifty-five. It had pleased her to hear again
the old "Miss Sophy" of their youth from Rodney Blake; but as she had
been one of those tall, slender, faintly lined girls who are called
lilies, and who are associated with pale blues and lavender, she
naturally found it difficult to realize a beauty, even if it was that of
a niece, so unlike her own. Mrs. Marcy was now less than slender; the
blue eyes which had once mildly lighted her countenance were faded. But
she still remained lily-like and willowy, and her attire adapted itself
to that style; there was a gleam of the lavender still--she wore long
shawls and scarfs.
In the easy-chair opposite, Rodney Blake leaned back. He was fifty-six,
long and thin, with a permanent expression on his face of half-weary,
half-amused cynicism, which, however, seemed to concern itself more with
life in general than with people in particular, and thus prevented
personal applications. He was well-to-do, well dressed. There was a
generally received legend that he was rather brilliant. This was the
more remarkable because he seldom said much. But perhaps that was the
reason. Miss Marcy had entered as her aunt finished her sentence.
"The sitting is over, then," said the elder lady. "Has Mr. Lenox gone?"
"Not yet," answered the niece, giving her hand to Mr. Blake as he rose
to greet her.
She was, as he had said, a beautiful woman. Yet at home there were still
those who would have dissented from this opinion, as, secretly, her aunt
dissented. She was of about medium height, with the form of a Juno. She
had a rich complexion, slowly moving eyes of deep brown, and very thick,
curling, low-growing hair of a bright gold color, which showed a warmer
reddish tinge in the light. She was the personification of healthy life
and vigor, but not of the nervous or active sort; of the reflective.
Wherever the sun touched her it struck a color: whether the red of cheek
or lip, or the beautiful tint of her forehead and throat, which was not
fair but clear; whether the brown of her eyes, or the gold of eyebrows,
eyelashes, and the heavy, low-coiled hair. Her features were fairly
regular, but not of the pointed type; they were short rather than long,
clearly, almost boldly, outlined. Her forehead was low; her mouth not
small, the lips beautifully cut. She was attired in black velvet--she
affected rich materials--and as she talked she twisted and untwisted a
string of large pearls which hung loosely round her throat and down upon
the velvet of her dress.