CHAPTER XIV

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 146me, 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 147blinked 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.”

“Mio caro,” 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. 148He 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. Eh bien, 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 149breast-pocket, and sorted rapidly a package of letters and papers. “Accidenti!” 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, hein?”

“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. 150The 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.

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

He bowed. “A very natural mistake. Felice noce.”

“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.