CHAPTER III

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 30cough. 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 nobili 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 31small 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 32center-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.”

“Per Baccho!” 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 33have 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 34melancholy, 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 camerini.

“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 35show 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: “Giovanni da Sestos fecit, 1525.”

“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 36affairs 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 37duke 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.

Suddenly this wall gave way to the pressure of my hand. I had pushed open a door.

38I 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 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 39in 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.