Chapter 3

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 cough. 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 small
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 center-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 have 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 melancholy, 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 show 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 affairs 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 duke 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.

I 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 in 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.