"She appears to escape from reality into a world of pictures and music," he said. "You must guard against that, my dear Walter. These things can be of no permanent interest to a healthy mind."

For a fortnight they saw much of their friends, and Mary observed how her father expanded in the atmosphere of Ernest and Nelly. They understood each other so well and echoed so many similar sentiments and convictions.

Ernest entertained a poor opinion of the Italian character. He argued that a nation which depended for its prosperity on wines and silk—"and such wines"—must have too much of the feminine in it to excel. He had a shadowy idea that he understood the language, though he could not speak nor write it himself.

"We, who have been nurtured at Eton and Oxford, remember enough Latin to understand these people," he said, "for what is Italian but the emasculated tongue of ancient Rome?"

Nelly Travers committed herself to many utterances as idiotic as Ernest's, and Mary secretly wondered to find how shadowy and ridiculous such solid people showed in a strange land. They carried their ignorance and their parochial atmosphere with them as openly and unashamedly as they carried their luggage. She was not sorry to leave them, for she and her father intended to stop for a while at Como before returning home again.

Their friends were going to motor over the battlefields of France presently, and both Ernest and Nelly came to see Sir Walter and his daughter off for Milan. Mr. Travers rushed to the door of the carriage and thrust in a newspaper as the train moved.

"I have secured a copy of last week's 'Field,' Walter," he said.

They passed over the Apennines on a night when the fire-flies flashed in every thicket under the starry gloom of a clear and moonless sky; and when the train stopped at little, silent stations the throb of nightingales fell upon their ears.

But circumstances prevented their visit to the Larian Lake, for at Milan letters awaited Sir Walter from home, and among them one that hastened his return. From a stranger it came, and chance willed that the writer, an Italian, had actually made the journey from Rome to London in order that he might see Sir Walter, while all the time the master of Chadlands happened to be within half a day's travel. Now, the writer was still in London, and proposed to stop there until he should receive an answer to his communication. He wrote guardedly, and made one statement of extraordinary gravity. He was concerned with the mystery of the Grey Room, and believed that he might throw some light upon the melancholy incidents recorded concerning it.

Sir Walter hesitated for Mary's sake, but was relieved when she suggested a prompt return.

"It would be folly to delay," she said. "This means quite as much to me as to you, father, and I could not go to Como knowing there may be even the least gleam of light for us at home. Nothing can alter the past, but if it were possible to explain how and why—what an unutterable relief to us both!"

"Henry was to meet us at Menaggio."

"He will be as thankful as we are if anything comes of this. He doesn't leave England till Thursday, and can join us at Chadlands instead."

"I only live to explain these things," confessed her father. "I would give all that I have to discover reasons for the death of your dear husband. But there are terribly grave hints here. I can hardly imagine this man is justified in speaking of 'crime.' Would the word mean less to him than to us?"

"He writes perfect English. Whatever may be in store, we must face it hopefully. Such things do not happen by chance."

"He is evidently a gentleman—a man of refinement and delicate feeling. I am kindly disposed to him already. There is something chivalric and what is called 'old-fashioned' in his expressions. No young man writes like this nowadays."

The letter, which both read many times, revealed the traits that Sir Walter declared. It was written with Latin courtesy and distinction. There were also touches of humor in it, which neither he nor Mary perceived:

"Claridge's Hotel, London. April 9.

"Dear Sir Walter Lennox,—In common with the rest of the world that knows England, I have recently been profoundly interested and moved at the amazing events reported as happening at Chadlands, in the County of Devon, under your roof. The circumstances were related in Italian journals with no great detail, but I read them in the 'Times' newspaper, being familiar with your language and a great lover of your country.

"I had already conceived the idea of communicating with you when—so small is the world in this our time—accident actually threw me into the society of one of your personal friends. At an entertainment given by the British Ambassador at Rome, a young soldier, one Colonel Vane, was able to do me some service in a crush of people, and I enjoyed the privilege of his acquaintance as the result. I would not have inflicted myself upon another generation, but he took an interest in conversing with one who knew his own language. He was also intelligent—for a military man. Needless to say, he made no allusion to the tragedy at Chadlands, but when he spoke of espionage in war and kindred matters, I found him familiar with the details concerning the death of the great English detective, Peter Hardcastle. I then asked him, as being myself deeply interested in the matter, whether it would be possible to get further and fuller details of the story of 'the Grey Room,' whereupon he told me, to my amazement, that he had been at Chadlands when your lamented son-in-law, Captain Thomas May, passed out of life. I then recollected Colonel Vane's name, among others mentioned in the 'Times,' as at Chadlands when the disaster occurred.

"Finding that my curiosity was not idle, Colonel Vane accepted an invitation to dinner, and I enjoyed the pleasure of entertaining him and learning many personal and intimate particulars of the event. These were imparted in confidence, and he knew that I should not abuse his trust. Indeed, I had already told him that it was my determination to communicate with you upon the strength of his narrative.

"It seems improbable that anything I can say will bear upon the case, and I may presently find that I lack the means to serve you, or throw light where all is so profoundly buried in darkness. Yet I am not sure. Small things will often lead to greater, and though the past is unhappily beyond recall, since our Maker Himself cannot undo the work of yesterday, or obliterate events embalmed in vanished time, yet there is always the future; and if we could but read the past aright, which we never can, then the future would prove less of a painful riddle than mankind generally finds it.

"If, then, I can help you to read the past, I may at least modify your anxieties in the future; and should I, by a remote chance, be right in my suspicions, it is quite imperative that I place myself at your service for the sake of mankind. In a word, a great crime has been committed, and the situation is possibly such that further capital crimes will follow it. I affirm nothing, but I conceive the agency responsible for these murders to be still active, since the police have been so completely foiled. At Chadlands there may still remain an unsleeping danger to those who follow you—a danger, indeed, to all human life, so long as it is permitted to persist. I write, of course, assuming you to be desirous of clearing this abominable mystery, both for your own satisfaction and the credit of your house. "There is but little to hope from me, and I would beg you not to feel sanguine in any way. Yet this I do believe: that if there is one man in the world to-day who holds the key of your tribulation, I am that man. One lives in hope that one may empty the world of so great a horror; and to do so would give one the most active satisfaction. But I promise nothing.

"If I should be on the right track, however, let me explain the direction in which my mind is moving. Human knowledge may not be equal to any solution, and I may fail accordingly. It may even be possible that the Rev. Septimus May did not err, and that at the cost of his life he exorcised some spirit whose operations were permitted for reasons hid in the mind of its Creator; but, so far as I am concerned, I believe otherwise. And if I should prove correct, it will be possible to show that all has fallen out in a manner consonant with human reason and explicable by human understanding. I therefore came to England, glad of the excuse to do so, and waited upon you at your manor, only to hear, much to my chagrin, that you were not in residence, but had gone to Florence, a bird's journey from my own home!

"Now I write to the post-office at Milan, where your servant directed me that letters should for the moment be sent. If you are returning soon, I wait for you. If not, it may be possible to meet in Italy. But I should prefer to think you return ere long, for I cannot be of practical service until I have myself, with your permission, visited your house and seen the Grey Room with my own eyes.

"I beg you will accept my assurances of kindly regard and sympathy in the great sufferings you and Madame May have been called upon to endure.

"Until I hear from you, I remain at Claridge's Hotel in London.

"I have the honor to be, "Faithfully yours, "Vergilio Mannetti."

To this communication, albeit he felt little hope, Sir Walter made speedy response. He declared his intention of returning to England during the following week, after which he hoped that Signor Mannetti would visit Chadlands at any time convenient to himself. He thanked him gratefully, but feared that, since the Italian based his theory on a crime, he could not feel particularly sanguine, for the possibility of such a thing had proved non-existent.

Mary, however, looked deeper into the letter. She even suspected that the writer himself entertained a greater belief in his powers than he declared.

"One has always felt the Grey Room is somehow associated with Italy," she said. "The ceiling we know was moulded by Italians in Elizabeth's day."

"It was; but so are all the other moulded ceilings in the house as well."

"He may understand Italian workmanship, and know some similar roof that hid a secret."

"The roof cannot conceal an assassin, and he clearly believes himself on the track of a crime." Nevertheless, Sir Walter's interest increased as the hour approached for their return home. Only when that was decided did he discover how much he longed to be there. For the horror and suffering of the past were a little dimmed already; he thirsted to see his woods and meadows in their vernal dress, to hear the murmur of his river, and move again among familiar voices and familiar paths.

Chadlands welcomed them on a rare evening of May, and the very genuine joy of his people moved Sir Walter not a little. Henry Lennox was already arrived, and deeply interested to read the Italian's letter. He and Mary walked presently in the gardens and he found her changed. She spoke more slowly, laughed not at all. But she had welcomed him with affection, and been interested to learn all that he had to tell her of himself.

"I felt that it would disappoint you to be stopped at the last moment," she said, "but I knew the reason would satisfy you well enough. I feel hopeful somehow; father does not. Yet it is hope mixed with fear, for Signor Mannetti speaks of a great crime."

"A vain theory, I'm afraid. Tell me about yourself. You are well?"

"Yes, very well. You must come to Italy some day, Henry, and let me show you the wonderful things I have seen."

"I should dearly love it. I'm such a Goth. But it's only brutal laziness. I want to take up art and understand a little of what it really matters."

"You have it in you. Are you writing any more poetry?"

"Nothing worth showing you."

She exercised the old fascination; but he indulged in no hope of the future. He knew what her husband had been to Mary, despite the shortness of their union; and, rightly, he felt positive that she would never marry again.

A mournful spectacle appeared, drawn by the sound of well-known voices, and the old spaniel, Prince, crept to Mary's feet. He offered feeble homage, and she made much of him, but the dog had sunk to a shadow.

"He must be put away, poor old beggar; it's cruel to keep him alive. Only Masters said he was determined he should not go while Uncle Walter was abroad. Masters has been a mother to him."

"Tell father that; he may blame Masters for letting him linger on like this. He rather hoped, I know, that poor Prince would be painlessly destroyed, or die, before he came back."

"Masters would never have let him die unless directed to do so."

"And I'm sure father could never have written the words down and posted them. You know father."

Letters awaited the returned travellers, one from Colonel Vane, who described his meeting with Signor Mannetti, and hoped something might come of it; and another from the stranger himself. He expressed satisfaction at his invitation, and proposed arriving at Chadlands on the following Monday, unless directions reached him to the contrary.

When the time came, Sir Walter himself went into Exeter to meet his guest and bring him back by motor-car. At first sight of the signor, his host experienced a slight shock of astonishment to mark the Italian's age. For Vergilio Mannetti was an ancient man. He had been tall, but now stooped, and, though not decrepit, yet he needed assistance, and was accompanied and attended by a middle-aged Italian. The traveller displayed a distinguished bearing. He had a brown, clean-shaved face, the skin of which appeared to have shrunk rather than wrinkled, yet no suggestion of a mummy accompanied this physical accident. His hair was still plentiful, and white as snow; his dark eyes were undimmed, and proved not only brilliant but wonderfully keen. He told them more than once, and indeed proved, that behind large glasses, that lent an owl-like expression to his face, his long sight was unimpaired. His rather round face sparkled with intelligence and humor.

He owned to eighty years, yet presented an amazing vitality and a keen interest in life and its fulness. The old man had played the looker-on at human existence, and seemed to know as much, if not more, of the game than the players. He confessed to this attitude and blamed himself for it.

"I have never done a stroke of honest work in my life," he said. "I was born with the silver spoon in my mouth. Alas, I have been amazingly lazy; it was my metier to look on. I ought, at least, to have written a book; but then all the things I wanted to say have been so exquisitely said by Count Gobineau in his immortal volumes, that I should only have been an echo. The world is too full of echoes as it is. Believe me, if I had been called to work for my living, I should have cut a respectable figure, for I have an excellent brain."

"You know England, signor?"

"When I tell you that I married an English-woman, and that both my sons have English blood in their veins, you will realize the sincerity of my devotion. My dear wife was a Somerset."

Mary May always declared that the old Italian won her heart and even awakened something akin to affection before she had known him half an hour. There was a fascination in his admixture of childish simplicity and varied knowledge. None, indeed, could resist his gracious humor and old-world courtesies. The old man could be simple and ingenuous, too; but only when it pleased him so to be; and it was not the second childishness of age, for his intellect remained keen and moved far more swiftly than any at Chadlands. But he was modest and loved a jest. The hand of time had indeed touched him, and sometimes his memory broke down and he faltered with a verbal difficulty; but this only appeared to happen when he was weary.

"The morning is my good time," he told them. "You will, I fear, find me a stupid old fellow after dinner."

Signor Mannetti proved a tremendous talker, and implicitly revealed that he belonged to the nobility of his country, and that he enjoyed the friendship of many notable men. The subject of his visit was not mentioned on the day of his arrival. He spoke only of Italy, laughed to think he had passed through Florence to seek Sir Walter in England, and then, finding his hostess a neophyte at the shrines of art, attuned himself to the subject for her benefit.

"If you found pictures answer to an unknown need within yourself, that is very well," he declared. "About music I know little; but concerning painting a great deal. And you desire to know, too, I see. The spirit is willing, but the spirit probably does not know yet what lies in front of it. You are groping—blind, childlike—without a hand to guard and an authority to guide. That is merely to waste time. When you go back to Italy, you must begin at the beginning, if you are in earnest—not at the middle. Only ignorance measures art in terms of skill, for there are no degrees in art. None has transcended Giotto, because technique and draughtsmanship are accidents of time; they lie outside the soul of the matter. Art is in fact a static thing. It changes as the face of the sea changes, from hour to hour; but it does not progress. There are great and small artists and great and small movements, as there are great and small waves, brisk breezes and terrific tempests; but all are moulded of like substance. In the one case art, in the other, the ocean, remains unchanged. I shall plan your instruction for you, if you please, and send you to the primitives first—the mighty ones who laid the foundations. I lived five years at Siena—for love of the beginnings; and you must also learn to love and reverence the beginnings, if you would understand that light in the darkness men call the Renaissance."

He broke from Mary presently, strove to interest Sir Walter, and succeeded.

"A benevolent autocracy is the ideal government, my friend—the ideal of all supreme thinkers—a Machiavelli, a Nietzsche, a Stendhal, a Gobineau. Liberty and equality are terms mutually destructive, they cannot exist together; for, given liberty, the strong instantly look to it that equality shall perish. And rightly so. Equality is a war cry for fools—a negation of nature, an abortion. The very ants know better. Doubtless you view with considerable distrust the growing spirit of democracy, or what is called by that name?"

"I do," admitted Sir Walter.

"Your monarch and mine are a little bitten by this tarantula. I am concerned for them. We must not pander to the mob's leaders, for they are not, and never have been, the many-headed thing itself. They, not the mob, are 'out to kill,' as you say. But that State will soon perish that thinks to prosper under the rule of the proletariat. Such a constitution would be opposed to natural law and, therefore, contain the seeds of its own dissolution. And its death would be inconceivably horrible; for the death of huge, coarse organisms is always horrible. Only distinguished creatures are beautiful in death, or know how to die like gentlemen."

"Who are on your side to-day, signor?" asked Henry Lennox.

"More than I know, I hope. Gobineau is my lighthouse in the storm. You must read him, if you have not done so. He was the incarnate spirit of the Renaissance. He radiated from his bosom its effulgence and shot it forth, like the light of a pharos over dark waters; he, best of all men, understood it, and, most of all men, mourned to see its bright hope and glory perish out of the earth under the unconquerable superstition of mankind and the lamentable infliction of the Jewish race. Alas! The Jews have destroyed many other things besides the Saviour of us all."

They found the Renaissance to be the favorite theme of Signor Mannetti. He returned again and again to it, and it was typical of him that he could combine assurances of being a devout Catholic with sentiments purely pagan.

"Christianity has operated in the making of many slaves and charlatans," he said. "One mourns the fact, but must be honest. It has too often scourged the only really precious members of society from the temple of life. It has cast the brave and clean and virile into outer darkness, and exalted the staple of humanity, which is never brave, or virile, and seldom really clean. A hideous wave submerges everything that matters. The proud, the beautiful—the only beings that justify the existence of mankind—will soon be on the hills with the hawks and leopards, and hunted like them—outcast, pariah, unwanted, hated."

"The spirit of christianity is socialistic, I fear," said Sir Walter. "It is one of those things I do not pretend to understand, but the modern clergy speak with a clear voice on the subject."

"Do your clergy indeed speak with a clear voice?"

"They do; and we must, of course, listen. Truth is apt to be painful. And how can we reconcile our aristocratic instincts with our faith? I ask for information and you will forgive the personality. I find myself in almost entire agreement with your noble sentiments. But, as a good Christian, ought I to be so? How do you stand with the one true faith in your heart and these opinions in your head, signor?"

The old man twinkled and a boyish smile lighted his aged countenance.

"A good question—a shrewd thrust, Sir Walter. There can be only one answer to that, my friend. With God all things are possible."

Henry laughed; his uncle was puzzled.

"You think that is no answer," continued the Italian. "But reason also must have a place in the sun, though we have to hide it in our pocket sometimes. So many great men would not extinguish their light—and had it extinguished for them. A difficult subject. Let us continue to think in compartments. It is safer so. If you are over eighty years old, you love safety. But I love joy and romance also, and is not religion almost the only joy and romance left to us? It is affirmation remember, not negation, that makes the world go round! The 'intellectuals' forget that, and they are sterile accordingly."

Signor Mannetti's wits were something too nimble for his hearers. He talked and talked—about everything but the matter in their minds—until half-past ten o'clock, when his man came after him. Thereupon he rose, like an obedient child, and wished them "Good-night."

"Stephano is my guardian angel," he said—"a being of painful punctuality. But he adds years to my life. He forgets nothing. I wish you a kind farewell until to-morrow and offer grateful thanks for your welcome. I breakfast in my room, if you please, and shall be ready at eleven o'clock to put myself at your service. Then you will be so gracious as to answer me some questions, and I shall, please God, try to help you."



CHAPTER XI. PRINCE DJEM

The master of Chadlands was both drawn and repelled by his guest. Signor Mannetti revealed a type of mind entirely beyond the other's experience, and while he often uttered sentiments with which Sir Walter found himself in cordial agreement, he also committed himself to a great many opinions that surprised and occasionally shocked the listener. Sir Walter was also conscious that many words uttered flew above his understanding. The old Italian could juggle with English almost as perfectly as he was able to do with his own language. He had his country's mastery of the phrase, the ironies, the double meanings, half malicious, half humorous, the outlook on humanity that delights to surprise—the compliment that, on closer examination, proves really to be the reverse. Mary's father voiced his emotions when the visitor had gone to bed.

"If it didn't seem impossible," he told Henry, "I could almost imagine that Signor Mannetti was trying to pull my leg sometimes."

"He tries, and succeeds," answered young Lennox. "He is built that way. His mind is as agile as a monkey, despite his age. He's a sly old bird; his thoughts move a thousand times faster than ours, and they're a thousand times more subtle."

"But he's very fascinating," declared Mary.

"He's a gentleman," answered Henry—"an Italian gentleman. They're different from us in their ideas of good form, that's all. Good form is largely a matter of geography—like most other manners and customs."

"I believe in him, anyway."

"So do I, Mary. I don't think he would ever have put himself to such extraordinary trouble if he hadn't felt pretty hopeful."

But Sir Walter doubted.

"He's old and his mind plays him tricks sometimes. No doubt he's immensely clever; but his cleverness belongs to the past. He has not moved with the times any more than I have."

"His eye flashes still, and you know he has claws, but, like a dear old Persian cat, he would never dream of using them."

"I think he would," answered her cousin. "He might spring on anybody—from behind."

"He is, at any rate, too old to understand democracy."

"He understands it only too well," replied Sir Walter. "Like myself, he knows that democracy is only autocracy turned inside out. Human nature isn't constructed to bear any such ideal. It might suit sheep and oxen—not men."

"He is an aristocrat, a survival, proud as a peacock under his humility, as kind-hearted as you are yourself, father."

"I rather doubt his kindness of heart," said Henry. "Latins are not kind. But I don't doubt his cleverness. One must be on one's guard against first impressions, Mary."

"No, no one mustn't, when they're so pleasant. There is nothing small or peddling about him. It was angelic of such an old man to take so much trouble."

Henry Lennox reminded them of practical considerations.

"The first thing is to get the room opened for him. He is going to see Uncle Walter at eleven o'clock, and he'll want to visit the Grey Room afterwards. If we get Chubb and a man or two from the village the first thing in the morning, they can help Caunter to open the room and have it ready for him after lunch."

Sir Walter rang and directed that workmen should be sent for at the earliest hour next day.

"I feel doubtful as to what the authorities would say, however," he told Henry, when his orders had been taken.

"What can they say, but be well pleased if the infernal thing is cleared up?"

"It is too good to be true."

"So I should think, but I share Mary's optimism. I honestly believe that Signor Mannetti knows a great deal more about the Grey Room than he has let us imagine."

"How can he possibly do that?" asked his uncle.

"Time will show; but I'm going to back him." At eleven o'clock on the following morning the visitor appeared. He walked with a gold-headed, ebony cane and dressed in a fashion of earlier days. He was alert and keen; his mind had no difficulty in concentrating on his subject. It appeared that he had all particulars at his fingers' ends, and he went back into the history of the Grey Room as far as Sir Walter was able to take him.

"We are dealing with five victims to our certain knowledge," he said, "for there is very little doubt that all must have suffered the same death and under the same circumstances."

"Four victims, signor."

"You forget your aged relative—the lady who came to spend Christmas with your father, when you were a boy, and was found dead on the floor. Colonel Vane, however, recollected her, because you had mentioned her when telling the story of Mrs. Forrester—Nurse Forrester."

"I never associated my aged aunt with subsequent tragedies—nobody did."

"Nevertheless, it was not old age and a good dinner that ended her life. She, too, perished by an assassin."

"You still speak of crime."

"If I am not mistaken, then 'crime' is the only word."

"But, forgive me, is it imaginable that the same criminal could destroy three men last year and kill an old woman more than sixty years ago?"

"Quite possible. You do not see? Then I hope to have the privilege of showing you presently."

"It would seem, then, that the malignant thing is really undying—as poor May believed—a conscious being hidden there, but beyond our sight and knowledge?"

"No, no, my friend. Let me be frank. I have no theory that embraces either a good or evil spirit. Believe me, there are fewer things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. Man has burdened his brain with an infinite deal of rubbish of his own manufacture. Much of his principle and practice is built on myths and dreams. He is a credulous creature, and insanely tenacious to tradition; but I say to you, suspect tradition at every turn, and the more ancient the tradition, the more mistrust it. We harbor a great deal too much of the savage still in us—we still carry about far more of his mental lumber and nonsense than we imagine. Intellect should simplify rather than complicate, and those to come will look back with pity to see this generation, like flies, entangled in the webs of thought their rude forefathers spun. But the eternal verities are few; a child could count them. We are, however, a great deal too fond of believing what our ancestors believed. Alas, nobody sins more in this respect than I. Let us, then, throw overboard the supernatural, once and for all, so far as the Grey Room is concerned. No ghost haunts it; no succubus or succuba is hidden there, to harry the life out of good men and women."

"It is strange that you should take almost the identical line of thought that poor Peter Hardcastle took. I hope to God you are right!"

"So far I am most certainly in the right. We can leave the other world out of our calculations."

He asked various questions, many of which did not appear to bear on the subject, but he made no suggestions as yet, and advanced no theories. He suspected that Peter Hardcastle might have arrived at a conclusion had not death cut short his inquiry. From time to time he lifted his hand gently for silence, and permitted a reply to penetrate his mind.

"I think very slowly about new things now," he said. "An idea must sink in gradually and find its place. That is the worst of new ideas. There is so little room for them when you are eighty. The old and settled opinions fill the space, and are jealous and resent newcomers."

Sir Walter explained to him presently that the room was being opened, and would be ready after luncheon. Whereupon he expressed concern for the workers.

"Let them have a care," he said, "for, if I am right, the danger is still present. Let them work with despatch, and not loiter about."

"No harm has ever undertaken more than one, when in the room alone. The detectives saw and felt nothing."

"Nevertheless, the assassin was quite equal to smudging out the detectives, believe me, Sir Walter."

The day was fine, and Signor Mannetti expressed a wish to take the air. They walked on the terrace presently, and Mary joined them. He asked for her arm, and she gave it.

Prince padded beside her, and the visitor declared interest in him.

"Like myself, your dog is on the verge of better things," he said. "He will do good deeds in the happy hunting grounds, be sure."

They told him the feats of Prince, and he appeared to be interested.

"Nevertheless, the faithful creature ought to die now. He is blind and paralysis is crippling his hinder parts."

Sir Walter patted the head of his ancient favorite.

"He dies on Friday," he said. "The vet will come then. I assure you the thought gives me very genuine pain."

"He has earned euthanasia, surely. What is that fine tree with great white flowers? I have seen the like before, but am sadly ignorant of horticulture."

"A tulip-tree," said Mary. "It's supposed to be the finest in Devonshire."

"A beautiful object. But all is beautiful here. An English spring can be divine. I shall ask you to drive me to primroses presently. Those are azaleas—that bank of living fire—superb!"

He praised the scene, and spoke about the formal gardens of Italy.

Then, when luncheon was finished and he had smoked a couple of cigarettes, Signor Mannetti rose, bowed to Sir Walter, and said:

"Now, if you please."

They accompanied and watched him silently, while his eyes wandered round the Grey Room.

The place was unchanged, and the dancing cherubs on the great chairs seemed to welcome daylight after their long darkness.

The visitor wandered slowly from end to end of the chamber, nodded to himself, and became animated. Then he checked his gathering excitement, and presently spoke.

"I think I am going to help you, Sir Walter," he said.

"That is great and good news, signor."

Then the old man became inconsequent, and turned from the room to the contents. If, indeed, he had found a clue, he appeared in no haste to pursue it. He entered now upon a disquisition concerning the furniture, and they listened patiently, for he had showed that any interruption troubled him. But it seemed that he enjoyed putting a strain upon their impatience.

"Beautiful pieces," he said, "but not Spanish, as you led me to suppose. Spanish chestnut wood, but nothing else Spanish about them. They are of the Italian Renaissance, and it is most seemly that Italian craftsmanship of such high order should repose here, under an Italian ceiling. Strange to say, my sleeping apartment at Rome closely resembles this room. I live in a villa that dates from the fifteenth century, and belonged to the Colonna. My chests are more superb than these; but your suite—the bed and chairs—I confess are better than mine. There is, however, a reason for that. Let us examine them for the sake of Mrs. May. Are these carved chairs, with their reliefs of dancing putti, familiar to her—the figures, I mean?"

Mary shook her head.

"Then it is certain that in your Italian wanderings you did not go to Prato. These groups of children dancing and blowing horns are very cleverly copied from Donatello's famous pulpit in the duomo. The design is carried on from the chairs to the footboard of the bed; but in their midst upon the footboard is let in this oval, easel-picture, painted on wood. It is faded, and the garlands have withered in so many hundred years, as well they might; but I can feel the dead color quite well, and I also know who painted it."

"Is it possible, signor—this faint ghost of a picture?"

"There exists no doubt at all. You see a little Pinturicchio. Note the gay bands of variegated patterns, the arabesques and fruits. Their hues have vanished, but their forms and certain mannerisms of the master are unmistakable. These dainty decorations were the sign manual of such quattrocento painters as Gozzoli and Pinturicchio; and to these men he, for whom these works of art were created, assigned the painting and adornment of the Vatican. We will come to him directly. It was for Michelangelo to make the creations of these artists mere colored bubbles and froth, when seen against the immensity and intellectual grandeur of his future masterpieces in the Sistine. But that was afterwards. We are concerned with the Pope for whom these chairs and this bed were made. Yes, a Pope, my friends—no less a personage than Alexander VI.!"

He waited, like a skilled actor, for the tremendous sensation he expected and deserved. But it did not come. Unhappily for Signor Mannetti's great moment, his words conveyed no particular impression to anybody.

Sir Walter asked politely:

"And was he a good, or a bad Pope? I fear many of those gentlemen had little to their credit."

But the signor felt the failure of his great climax. At first he regretted it, and a wave of annoyance, even contempt, passed unseen through his mind; then he was glad that the secret should be hidden for another four-and-twenty hours, to gain immensely in dramatic sensation by delay. Already he was planning the future, and designing wonderful histrionics. He could not be positive that he was right; though now the old man felt very little doubt.

He did not answer Sir Walter's question, but asked one himself.

"The detectives examined this apartment with meticulous care, you say?"

"They did indeed."

"And yet what can care and zeal do; what can the most conscientious student achieve if his activities are confounded by ignorance? The amazing thing to me is that nobody should have had the necessary information to lead them at least in the right direction. And yet I run on too fast. After all, who shall be blamed, for it is, of course, the Grey Room and nothing but the Grey Room we are concerned with. Am I right? The Grey Room has the evil fame?"

"Certainly it has."

"And yet a little knowledge of a few peculiar facts—a pinch of history—yet, once again, who shall be blamed? Who can be fairly asked to possess that pinch of history which means so much in this room?"

"How could history have helped us, signor?" asked Henry Lennox.

"I shall tell you. But history is always helpful. There is history everywhere around us—not only here, but in every other department of this noble house. Take these chairs. By the accident of training, I read in them a whole chapter of the beginnings of the Renaissance; to you they are only old furniture. You thought them Spanish because they were bought in Spain—at Valencia, as a matter of fact. You did not know that, Sir Walter; but your grandfather purchased them there—to the despair and envy of another collector. Yes, these chairs have speaking faces to me, just as the ceiling over them has a speaking face also. It, too, is copied. History, in fact, breathes its very essence in this home. If I knew more history than I do, then other beautiful things would talk to me as freely as these chairs—and as freely as the trophies of the chase and the tiger skins below no doubt talk to Sir Walter. But are we not all historical—men, women, even children? To exist is to take your place in history, though, as in my case, the fact will not be recorded save in the 'Chronicles' of the everlasting. Yes, I am ancient history now, and go far back, before Italy was a united kingdom. Much entertaining information will be lost for ever when I die. Believe me, while the new generation is crying forth the new knowledge and glorying in its genius, we of the old guard are sinking into our graves and taking the old knowledge with us. Yet they only rediscover for themselves what we know. Human life is the snake with its tail in its mouth—Nietzsche's eternal recurrence and the commonplaces of our forefathers are echoed on the lips of our children as great discoveries."

Henry Lennox ventured to bring him back to the point.

"What knowledge—what particular branch of information should a man possess, signor, to find out what you have found?"

"Merely an adornment, my young friend, a side branch of withered learning, not cultivated, I fear, by your Scotland Yard. Yet I have known country gentlemen to be skilled in it. The practice of heraldry. I marked your arms on your Italian gates. I must look at those gates again—they are not very good, I fear. But the arms—a chevron between three lions—a fine coat, yet probably not so ancient as the gates."

"It was such a thing as bothered me in Florence," said Sir Walter. "I'd seen it before somewhere, but where I know not—a bull's head of gold on a red field."

Signor Mannetti started and laughed.

"Ha-ha! We will come to the golden bull presently, Sir Walter. You shall meet him, I promise you!"

Then he broke off and patted his forehead.

"But I go too quickly—far too quickly indeed. I must rest my poor brain now, or it will rattle in my head like a dry walnut. When it begins to rattle, I know that I have done enough for the present. May I walk in the garden again—not alone, but with your companionship?"

"Of course, unless you would like to retire and rest for a while."

"Presently I shall do so. And please permit nobody to enter the Grey Room but myself. Not a soul must go or come without me."

Sir Walter spoke.

"You still believe the peril is material then—an active, physical thing, controlled by a conscious human intelligence?"

"If I am right, it certainly is active enough."

They went into the garden, and Signor Mannetti, finding a snug seat in the sun, decided to stop there. Henry and his uncle exchanged glances, and the latter found his faith weakening, for the Italian's mind appeared to wander. He became more and more irrelevant, as it seemed. He spoke again of the old dog who was at his master's feet.

"Euthanasia for the aged. Why not? For that matter, I have considered it for myself in dark moments. Have you ever wondered why we destroy our pets, for love of them, yet suffer our fellow creatures to exist and endure to the very dregs Nature's most fiendish methods of dissolution? Again one of those terrible problems where mercy and religion cannot see eye to eye."

They uttered appropriate sentiments, and again the old man changed the subject and broke new ground.

"There was a prince—not your old dog—but a royal lad of the East—Prince Djem, the brother of the Sultan Bajazet. Do you know that story? Possibly not—it is unimportant enough, and to this day the sequel of the incident is buried in a mystery as profound as that of the Grey Room. Our later historians whitewash Alexander VI. concerning the matter of Prince Djem; but then it is so much the habit of later historians to whitewash everybody. A noble quality in human nature perhaps—to try and see the best, even while one can only do so by ignoring the worst. Certainly, as your poet says, 'Distance makes the heart grow fonder'; or, at any rate, softer. There is a tendency to side with the angels where we are dealing with historic dead. Nero, Caligula, Calvin, Alva, Napoleon, Torquemada—all these monsters and portents, and a thousand such blood-bespattered figures are growing whiter as they grow fainter. They will have wings and haloes presently. Yet not for me. I am a good hater, my friends. But Prince Djem—I wander so. You should be more severe with me and keep me to my point. Sultan Bajazet wanted his younger brother out of the way, and he paid the Papacy forty thousand ducats a year to keep the young fellow a prisoner in Italy. It was a gilded captivity and doubtless the dissolute Oriental enjoyed himself quite as well at Rome as he would have done in Constantinople. But after Alexander had achieved the triple tiara, Bajazet refused to pay his forty thousand ducats any longer. The Pope, therefore, wrote strongly to the Sultan, telling him that the King of France designed to seize Prince Djem and go to war on his account against the Turks. This does not weary you?"

"No, indeed," declared Mary.

"Alexander added, that to enable him to resist the French and spare Bajazet's realms the threatened invasion, a sum of forty thousand ducats must be immediately forthcoming. The Sultan, doubtless appalled by such a threat, despatched the money with a private letter. He was as great a diplomat as the Pope himself, and saw a way to evade this gigantic annual impost by compounding on the death of Djem. Unfortunately for him, however, both the papal envoy and Bajazet's own messenger were captured upon their return journey by the brother of Cardinal della Rovere—Alexander's bitterest enemy. Thus the contents of the secret letter became known, and the Christian world heard with horror how Bajazet had offered the occupant of St. Peter's throne three hundred thousand ducats to assassinate Prince Djem!

"Time passed, and the Pope triumphed over his enemies. He prepared to abandon the person of the young Turk to Charles of France, and effectively checkmated the formidable Rovere for a season. But then, as we know, Prince Djem suddenly perished, and while latest writers declare that he actually reached France, only to die there, ruined by his own debaucheries, I, for one, have not accepted that story. He never reached France, my friends, for be sure Alexander VI. was not the man to let any human life stand between his treasury and three hundred thousand ducats."

Signor Mannetti preserved silence for a time, then he returned in very surprising fashion to the subject that had brought him to Chadlands. He had been reflecting and now proceeded with his thoughts aloud.

"You must, however, restrain your natural impatience a little longer, until another night has passed. I will, if you please, myself spend some hours in the Grey Room after dark, and learn what the medieval spirits have to tell me. Shall I see the wraith of Prince Djem, think you? Or the ghost of Pinturicchio hovering round his little picture? Or those bygone, cunning workers in plaster who built the ceiling? They will at least talk the language of Tuscany, and I shall be at home among them."

Sir Walter protested.

"That, indeed, is the last thing I could permit, signor," he said.

"That is the first thing that must happen, nevertheless," replied the old gentleman calmly. "You need not fear for me, Sir Walter. I jest about the spirits. There are no spirits in the Grey Room, or, if there are, they are not such as can quarrel with you, or me. There is, however, something much worse than any spirit lurking in the heart of your house—a potent, sleepless, fiendish thing; and far from wondering at all that has happened, I only marvel that worse did not befall. But I have the magic talisman, the 'open sesame.' I am safe enough even if I am mistaken. Though my fires are burning low, it will take more than your Grey Room to extinguish them. I hold the clue of the labyrinth, and shall pass safely in and out again. To-morrow I can tell you if I am right."

"I confess that any such plan is most disagreeable to me. I have been specially directed by the authorities to allow no man to make further experiments alone."

Vergilio Mannetti showed a trace of testiness. "Forgive me, but your mind moves without its usual agility, my friend. Have I not told you everything? What matters Scotland Yard, seeing that it is entirely in the dark, while I have the light? Let them hear that they are bats and owls, and that one old man has outwitted the pack of them!"

"You have, as you say, told us much, my dear signor, and much that you have said is deeply interesting. In your mind it may be that these various facts are related, and bring you to some sort of conclusion bearing on the Grey Room; but for us it is not so. These statements leave us where they find us; they hang on nothing, not even upon one another in our ears. I speak plainly, since this is a matter for plain speaking. It is natural that you should not feel as we feel; but I need not remind you that what to you is merely an extraordinary mystery, to us is much more. You have imagination, however, far more than I have, and can guess, without being told, the awful suffering the past has brought to my daughter and myself."

"Our slow English brains cannot flash our thoughts along so quickly as yours, signor," said Mary. "It is stupid of us, but—"

"I stand corrected," answered the other instantly. He rose from his seat, and bowed to them with his hand on his heart.

"I am a withered old fool, and not quick at all. Forgive me. But thus it stands. Since you did not guess, through pardonable ignorance of a certain fact, then, for the pleasure of absolute proof, I withhold my discovery a little longer. There is drama here, but we must be skilled dramatists and not spoil our climax, or anticipate it. To-morrow it shall be—perhaps even to-night. You are not going to be kept long in suspense. Nor will I go alone and disobey Scotland Yard. Your aged pet—this spaniel dog—shall join me. Good Prince and I will retire early and, if you so desire it, we shall be very willing to welcome you in the Grey Room—say some six or seven hours later. I do not sleep there, but merely sustain a vigil, as all the others did. But it will be briefer than theirs. You will oblige me?"

Mary spoke, seeing the pain on her father's face. She felt certain that the old man knew perfectly what he was talking about. She had spoken aside to Henry, and he agreed with her. Mannetti had solved the mystery; he had even enabled them to solve it; but now, perhaps to punish them for their stupidity, he was deliberately withholding the key, half from love of effect, half in a spirit of mischief. He was planning something theatrical. He saw himself at the centre of the stage in this tragic drama, and it was not unnatural that he should desire to figure there effectively after taking so much trouble. Thus, while Sir Walter still opposed, he was surprised to hear Mary plead on the visitor's behalf, and his nephew support her.

"Signor Mannetti is quite right, father; I am positive of it," she said. "He is right; and because he is right, he is safe."

"Admirably put!" cried the Italian. "There you have the situation in a nutshell, my friends. Trust a clever woman's intuition. I am indeed right. Never was consciousness of right so impressed upon my mind—prone as I am always to doubt my own conclusions. I am, in fact, right because I cannot be wrong. Trust me. My own safety is absolutely assured, for we are concerned with the operations of men like ourselves—at least, I hope very different from ourselves, but men, nevertheless. It was your fate to revive this horror; it shall be my privilege to banish it out of the earth. At a breath the cunning of the ungodly shall be brought to nought. And not before it is time. But the mills of God grind slowly. Our achievement will certainly resound to the corners of the civilized world."

"I'm as positive as the signor himself that he is safe, uncle," said Henry Lennox.

"Let us go to tea," replied Sir Walter. "These things are far too deep for a plain man. I only ask you to consider all this must mean to me who am the master of Chadlands and responsible to the authorities. Reflect if ill overtook you."

"It is impossible that it can."

"So others believed. And where are they? Further trouble would unhinge my mind, signor."

"You have endured enough to make you speak so strongly, and your brave girl also. But fear nothing whatever. I am far too deeply concerned and committed on your behalf to add a drop to the bitter drink of the past, my dear Sir Walter. I am as safe in that room as I should be at the altar steps of St. Peter's. Trust old Prince, if you cannot trust me. I rely largely on your blind pet to aid me. He has good work to do yet, faithful fellow."

"The detectives took animals into the room, but they were not hurt," said Lennox.

"Neither shall the dog be hurt."

He patted the sleeping spaniel, and they rose and went into the house together.

Mannetti evidently assumed that his wishes were to be granted.

"I will go and sleep awhile," he said. "Until an early dinner, excuse me, and let Mrs. May and Mr. Lennox convince you, as they are themselves convinced. These events have immensely excited my vitality. I little guessed that, at the end of my days, a sensation so remarkable lay in store for me. I must conserve my strength for to-night. I am well—very well—and supported by the consciousness of coming triumph. Such an achievement would have rewarded my long journey and these exertions, even had not your acquaintance been ample reward already. I will, then, sleep until dinner-time, and so be replenished to play my part in a wonderful though melancholy romance. Let us dine at seven, if you please."

His excitement and natural levity strove with the gloomy facts. He resembled a mourner at a funeral who experiences pleasant rather than painful emotions but continually reminds himself to behave in a manner appropriate to the occasion.

They sent for his man, and, on Stephano's arm, the old gentleman withdrew.

He returned for a moment, however, and spoke again.

"You will do exactly as I wish and allow no human being to enter the Grey Room. Keep the key in your pocket, Sir Walter; and do not go there yourself either. It is still a trap of death for everybody else in the world but myself."



CHAPTER XII. THE GOLDEN BULL

When Masters came to clear the tea, he found Sir Walter still unconvinced.

"What do you think of Signor Mannetti, Masters?" asked Henry; and the butler, who was a great reader of the newspapers, made answer.

"I think he's a bit of a freak, Mr. Henry. They tell me that old people can have a slice of monkey slipped into 'em nowadays—to keep 'em going and make 'em young and lively again. Well, I should say the gentleman had a whole monkey popped in somewhere. I never see such another. He's got a tongue like a rat-trap, and he leaves you guessing every time. He's amazing clever; so's his man. That Stephano knows a thing or two! He's got round Jane Bond something disgraceful. I never knew what was in Jane—and her five and fifty if she's an hour."

"Would he be safe in the Grey Room?" said Sir Walter.

"He'd be safe anywhere. The question in my mind is whether our silver's safe; and a few other things. I catched him poking about in the silver table only this morning. He knows what's what. He knows everything. I wouldn't say he ain't one of the swell mob myself—made up to look like an old man. I'll swear he's never seen eighty years for all he pretends."

Henry laughed.

"Don't you be frightened of him, Masters; he's all right."

"Let him go in the Grey Room by all means, Mr. Henry. He knows he's safe anywhere. Yes, Sir Walter, he knows he's safe enough. He's got the measure of it."

"Prince is to go with him, Masters."

"Prince! Why, ma'am?"

"We don't know. He wishes it. He can't hurt poor old Prince anyway."

"Well, I sha'n't sleep no worse; and I hope none of you won't, if you'll excuse me. Come what will, there's nothing in the Grey Room will catch that man napping. Not that I'm against the gentleman in general, you understand. Only I wouldn't trust him a foot. He's play-acting, and he's no more a foreigner than I am—else he couldn't talk so fine English as I do, if not finer."

"Masters is on our side, father," said Mary. "And he's right. The signor is play-acting. He loves to be in the centre of the stage. All old people do, and one of the pathetic things in life is that they're seldom allowed to be. So he's making the most of his opportunity."

"And if you refuse, Uncle Walter, he'll only go away and say he cannot help you, and accuse us of giving him all this trouble for nothing," added Henry Lennox.

They had their wish at last, and when Signor Mannetti came down to an early dinner in splendid spirits, Sir Walter conceded his desire.

"Good, my friend! And do not fear that a night of anxiety awaits you. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, it will be possible for us all to sleep very soundly, though we may go to bed rather late. But I think we must be prepared not to retire till after two o'clock. I will enter upon my watch at eight—in half an hour. The door shall be left open, as you wish. But I beg that none will approach the east end of the corridor. That is only fair. I will, however, permit Mr. Lennox to station himself on the top of the great staircase, and from time to time he may challenge me. He shall say 'Is all well?' and be sure I shall answer 'All is well.' Could anything be more satisfactory?"

Signor Mannetti ate sparingly, then he donned a big, fur, motor-coat and declared himself ready. They thought he had forgotten Prince, but he insisted upon the company of the ancient spaniel. The dog had fed, and he could sleep as well in one place as another.

"Fear not," said the Italian. "I shall be considerate to your ancient pet. I do not beg his aid without reason. He is on my side and will help me if he can—infirm though he be. I have made friends with him. Set him at my feet. I will sit here under the electric light and read my Italian papers."

Thus once again a solitary occupied the Grey Room and measured his intelligence against the terrible forces therein concealed. Signor Mannetti took leave of them cheerfully at eight o'clock, and while Sir Walter and Mary descended to the library, Henry took up his station at the head of the staircase. The corridor was lighted and the door of the Grey Room left open.

But in ten minutes the watcher looked out and cried to Lennox, who sat smoking about thirty-five yards from him.

"There is a great draught here," he said. "I will close the door, but leave it ajar that we may salute each other from time to time."

The hours crept on and since everybody at Chadlands knew what was happening, few retired to rest. It was understood that some time after midnight Signor Mannetti hoped to declare the result of his experiment.

Henry Lennox challenged half-hourly, always receiving a brisk reply. But a little after half-past one his "All well, signor?" received no response. He raised his voice, but still no answer came. He went to the door, therefore, and looked into the Grey Room. The watcher had slipped down in the armchair they had set for him under the electric light, and was lying motionless, but in an easy position. He still wore his fur-coat. Prince Henry did not see. The room was silent and cold. The electric light burned brightly, and both windows were open. Young Lennox hastened downstairs. His thoughts concentrated on his uncle, and his desire was to spare him any needless shock. For a moment he believed that Signor Mannetti had succumbed in the Grey Room, as others before him, but he could not be certain. A bare half-hour had elapsed since the watcher had uttered a cheerful answer to the last summons, and told them his vigil was nearly ended. Lennox sought Masters, therefore, told him that the worst was to be feared, yet explained that the old man who had watched in the Grey Room might not be dead but sunk in sleep.

Masters was sanguine that it might be so.

"Be sure he is so. I'll fetch the liqueur brandy," and, armed with his panacea, he followed Henry upstairs. Signor Mannetti had not moved, but as they approached him, to their infinite relief he did so, opened his eyes, stared wildly about him, and then realized the situation.

"Alas! Now I have frightened you out of your senses," he said, looking at their anxious faces. "All is well. In less than another hour I should have summoned Sir Walter. But just that last half-hour overcame me, and I sank into sleep. What is the time?"

"A quarter to two, signor."

"Good! Then let your uncle be summoned. I have found out the secret."

"A thimbleful of old cognac, signor?" asked Masters.

"Willingly, my friend, willingly. I see how wise you both were. I approve and thank you. You thought that I had followed the others into the shades, yet meant to restore me if you could without frightening Sir Walter. To go to sleep was unpardonable."

Abraham Masters and Henry descended with the good news, while the old man drank.

"I shall detain you half an hour or so," he said, when they all returned to him. "But I have no fear that anybody will want to fall asleep."

Sir Walter spoke.

"Thank Heaven, signor, thank Heaven! All is well with you?"

"All is absolutely well with me, but then I have slept refreshingly for some time. You, I fear, have not closed your eyes."

"Would you have any objection to Masters hearing what you may have to tell us? By so doing a true and ungarbled report will get out to Chadlands."

"My report will go out to the whole world, Sir Walter. All is accomplished and established on certain proofs. Your good spaniel has played his part also. I salute him—the old Prince."

Henry now observed that the dog was stretched on the floor at Signor Mannetti's feet.

"Still asleep?"

Mary knelt to pat the spaniel and started back.

"How horribly cold he is!"

"For ever asleep—a martyr to science. He was to die on Friday, remember. He has received euthanasia a little sooner, and nothing in his life has become him like the leaving of it. The last victim of the Grey Room. Mourn him not, he passed without a pang—as did his betters."

"But, but—you spoke of crime and criminals!" gasped Sir Walter.

"And truly. Great crimes have been committed in this room and great criminals committed them. Is a crime any less a crime because the doers have mouldered in their dishonored graves for nearly five hundred years?"

"Your handling of speech is not ours, and you use words differently. The old dog did not suffer, you say? How did he come to die—in his sleep?"

"Even so. Without a sigh, the last venerable victim of this murdering shadow."

"You saw him die, and yet were safe yourself, sir?" asked Lennox.

"That is what happened. Now sit down all of you, father Abraham also, and in five minutes all will be as clear as day."

They obeyed him silently.

"Yes, a master criminal, one whose name has rung down the ages and will from to-morrow win a further resonance. Would that we could bring him to account; but he has already gone to it, if justice lies at the root of things, as all men pray, and you and I believe, Sir Walter. An interesting reflection: How many suffer, if they do not actually perish, from the sins of the dead? Not only the sins of our father are visited upon us, but, if we could trace the infliction, the crimes of countless dead men accomplished long before we were born into this suffering world. I speak in a parable, but this is literal, actual. Dead men committed these murders, and left this legacy of woe."

Signor Mannetti stroked the lifeless spaniel.

"When we were left alone I picked him up and set him on the bed. He did not waken, and I knew that he would never waken again. Now let us look at this noble bed, if you please. Here is the link, you see, without which so much that I told you yesterday must have sounded no more than the idle chatter of an old man. Come and use your eyes. Ah, if only people had used their eyes sooner!"

They followed him, and he pointed to a framework of carved wood that connected the four posts.

"What is this on the frieze running above the capitals of the little Ionic pillars?"

"The papal crown and keys," said Mary.

"Good! Now regard the other side."

"A coat of arms—a golden bull on a red ground—why, father, that was what puzzled you at Florence!"

"Surely it was. The thing stuck in my memory, yet I could not remember where I had seen it before."

Signor Mannetti prepared for his effect, then made it.

"The arms of the Borgia! The arms of the Spanish Pope, Alexander VI. of unholy memory. So all is told, and we will soon go to bed. Having marked them this morning, you will see how readily I was led into the heart of the secret. It only needed some such certain sign. And everything that had happened was consonant with this explanation. The first to suffer puzzled me; but I solved that problem, too. You shall hear how each woman and each man was slain. Look at this mattress upholstered in satin—there lies the unsleeping thing that brings sleep so quickly to others! I guessed it this morning; I proved it to-night. At seventeen minutes past eight Prince was dead; but not until I awoke, near two o'clock, did I dare approach him. For how did he die? The moment the heat of his ancient body penetrated the mattress under him, it released its awful venom. He stretched himself, curled up again, and, as the exhalation rose, with scarcely a tremor he passed from sleep into death. Needless to tell you that I kept far from him, for I guessed that not until the poor fellow was cold would the demon in the mattress sink down and disappear, as the effret into his bottle. Then mattress and dog were alike harmless, as they are now. I gave him only five hours, for he was a small, thin beast, and the heat soon left his body."

"But, signor—"

"I shall anticipate all your objections if you will listen a little longer, dear Mrs. May. Let us sit again, and question me after I have spoken, if any doubts remain unanswered. Another liqueur, Masters."

He sipped, and preserved silence for a few moments, while none spoke. Then from his armchair he traversed the story of the Grey Room, and proved amazingly familiar with the smallest detail of it. Indeed, when at last he had finished, none could find any questions to ask. "There are two very interesting preliminary facts to note, my friends," began the signor. He beamed upon them, and enjoyed his own exposition with unconcealed gusto. "The first is that a room, already suffering from sinister traditions, and held to be haunted, should have been precisely that into which this infernal engine of destruction was introduced. Yet what more natural? You have the furniture, and, for the time being, do not know what to do with it. The house is already full of beautiful things, and these surplus treasures you store here, to be safe and out of the way, in a room which is not put to its proper use. You are not collectors or experts. Sir Walter's father did not share his father's enthusiasm, neither did Sir Walter care for old furniture. So the pieces take their place in this room, and are, more or less, forgotten.

"That is the first interesting fact, and the second seems to me to be this: that those who perished here in living memory all died at different places in the room, and so died that their deaths could not be immediately and undeviatingly traced to the bed. Hardcastle, for example, as you have related his conversation, did not associate the death of poor Captain May with that of the lady of the hospital eleven years before; and Sir Walter himself saw no reason to connect the still earlier death of his aged aunt, which took place when he was a boy, with the disaster that followed.

"Let us now examine for a moment the amazing fact that none of the stigmata of death was found in those who perished here.

"Death has three modes—the pale horseman strikes us down by asphyxia, by coma, and by syncope. In asphyxia he stabs the lungs; in coma his lance is aimed at the brain; in syncope, at the heart.

"When a man dies by asphyxia, it means that the action of the muscles by which he breathes is stopped, or the work of his lungs prevented by injury, or the free passage of air arrested, as in drowning, or strangulation. It may also mean that embolism has taken place, and the pulmonary artery is blocked, withholding blood from the lungs. But it was not thus that any died in this chamber.

"Coma occurs through an apoplexy, or concussion; by the use of certain narcotic or mineral poisons; and in various other ways, all of which are ruled out for us.

"There remains syncope. A heart ceases to beat from haemorrhage, or starvation, from exhaustion, or the depressing influence of certain drugs. They who died here died from syncope; but why? No autopsy can tell us why. They passed with only their Maker to sustain them, and none leaves behind an explanation of what overtook him, or her. Yet we know full well, even in the case of Peter Hardcastle, concerning whom the police felt doubt, that he was quite dead before Mr. Lennox discovered him and picked him up. We know that the phenomena of rigor mortis had already set in before his body reached London.

"Nothing, however, is new under the sun. Many journals related the fact that these people had passed away without a cause, as though it were an event without a parallel. It is not. Your Dr. Templeman, in 1893, describes two examples of sudden death with absolute absence of any pathological condition in any part of the bodies to account for it. He describes the case of a man of forty-three, and calls it 'emotional inhibition of the heart.' The heart was arrested in diastole, instead of systole, as is usually the case; the mode of death was syncope; the cause of death, undiscoverable.

"A layman may be permitted, I suppose, to describe 'emotional inhibition of the heart' as 'shock'; but we know, in our cases, that if a shock, it was not a painful one—perhaps not even an unpleasant one. Since all other emotions can be pleasant or unpleasant, why must we assume that the supreme emotion of death may not be pleasant also, did we know how to make it so? Perhaps the Borgia, among their secrets, had discovered this. At least the familiar signs of death were wholly absent from the countenances of the dead. The jaws were not set; the familiar, expressions were not changed, as usually happens from rigidity of facial muscles; their faces were not sallow; their temples were not sunk; their brows were not contracted.

"We will now take the victims, one by one, and show how death happened to each of them, yet left no sign that it had happened. Frankly, the first case alone presented any difficulties to me. For a time I despaired of proving how the bed had destroyed Sir Walter's ancestor, because she had not entered it. But the difficulty becomes clear to one possessing our present knowledge, for once prove the properties of the bed, and the rest follows. You will say that they were not proved, only guessed. That was true, until Prince died. His death crowned my edifice of theory and converted it to fact. As to why the bed has these properties, that is for science to find out presently.

"To return, then, to the old lady, the ancient woman of your race, who came unexpectedly to the Christmas re-union and was put to sleep in the Grey Room at her own wish. She was found dead next morning on the floor. She had not entered the bed. The exact facts have long disappeared from human knowledge, and it is only possible to re-construct them by inference and the support of those straightforward events that followed. I conceive, then, that though the old lady did not create the warmth that liberated the evil spirit of the bed and so destroyed her, that warmth was nevertheless artificially created. What must have happened, think you? The bed is made up in haste and the fire lighted. But the fire is a long way from the bed, and would have no effect to create the necessary temperature. There is, however, a hot-water bottle in the bed, or a hot brick wrapped in flannel. The old lady is about to enter her bed. She has extinguished her candle, but the flame of the fire gives light. She has prayed; she throws off her dressing-gown and flings back the covering of the bed, to fall an instant victim to the miasma. She drops backward and is found dead next morning, by which time the bottle and bed are also cold.

"Taken alone, I grant this explanation may fail to win your sympathy; but consider the cumulative evidence in store. The old lady may, of course, have died a natural death. She may not have turned down the bed. There is nobody living to tell us. All that Sir Walter can recollect is that she was found on the floor of the room dead. Exactly where, he does not remember. But for my own part I have no doubt whatever that her death took place in that way.

"We are on safer ground with the other tragic happenings, though, save in the case of Nurse Forrester, there is nothing on the surface of events to connect their deaths with the accursed bed. You will see, however, that it is very easy to do so. In the lady's case all is clear enough. She goes to bed tired and she sleeps peacefully into death without waking. She is probably asleep within ten minutes, before her own warmth has penetrated through sheet and blanket to the mattress beneath and so destroyed her. Suppose that she is dead in half an hour. She retired to rest at ten o'clock; she is called at seven; the room is presently broken into and she is then not only dead, but cold. The demon has gone to sleep again under its lifeless burden. Now had she been stout and well covered, there had hardly been time for her to grow cold, and those who came to her assistance might even have perished, too. But she is a little, thin thing, and the heat has gone out of her. This assured the safety of those who came to the bedside. One can make no laws as to the time necessary for a dead body to grow as cold as its surroundings. The bodies of the old and the young cool more quickly than those of adult persons. If the conditions are favorable a body may cool in six to eight hours. Prince took but five, poor little bag of bones.

"In the case of Captain May the conditions are altogether different. Let me speak with all tenderness and spare you pain. Be sure that he suffered no more than the others. The bed is now no longer made; the mattress is bare. That matters not to him. Clad in his pyjamas, with a railway rug to cover him and his dressing-gown for a pillow, he flings himself down, and from his powerful and sanguine frame warmth is instantly communicated to the mattress that supports him. Probably but a few minutes were sufficient to liberate the poison. He is not asleep, but on the edge of sleep when he becomes suddenly conscious of physical sensations beyond his experience. He had breathed death, but yet he is not dead. His brain works, and can send a message to his limbs, which are still able to obey. But his hour has come. He leaps from the bed in no suffering, but conscious, perhaps of an oppression, or an unfamiliar odor—we cannot say what. We only know that he feels intense surprise, not pain for in that dying moment his emotions are fixed for ever by the muscles of his face. He needs air and seeks it. He hurries to the recess, kneels on the cushion, and throws open the window. Or the window may have been already open—we cannot tell. To reach it is his last conscious act, and in another moment he is dead. The bed is not suspected. Why should it be? Who could prove that he had even laid down upon it? Indeed it was believed and reported at the inquest that he had not done so. Yet that is what unquestionably happened. Otherwise his candle would have burned to the socket. He had blown it out and settled to rest, be sure.

"We have now to deal with the detective, and here again there was nothing to associate his death with the bed of the Borgia. Yet you will see without my aid how easily he came by his death. Peter Hardcastle desires to be alone, that he may study the Grey Room and everything in it. He is left as he wishes, walks here and there, sketches a ground plan of the room and exhausts its more obvious peculiarities. Would that he had known the meaning of the golden bull! Presently he strikes a train of thought and sits down to develop it. Or he may not have finished with the room and have taken a seat from which he could survey everything around him. He sits at the foot of the bed—there on the right side. He makes his notes, then his last thoughts enter his mind—abstract reflection on the subject of his trade. For a moment he forgets the matter immediately in hand and writes his ideas in his book. He has been sitting on the bed now for some while—how long we know not, but long enough to create the heightened temperature which is all the watchful fiend within the mattress requires to summon him. Then ascends the spirit of death, and Hardcastle, surprised as Captain May was surprised, leaps to his feet. He takes two or three steps forward; his book and pen fall from his hand and he drops upon his face—a dead man. He is, of course, still warm when Mr. Lennox finds him; but the bed he leaped from is cold again and harmless—its work done.

"There remains the priest, the Rev. Septimus May. He neither lay on the bed, nor sat upon it. But what did he do? He clearly knelt beside it a long time, engaged in prayer. Nothing more natural than that he should stretch his arms over the mattress; bury his face in his hands, and so remain in commune with the Almighty, uttering petition after petition for the being he conceived as existing in the Grey Room, without power to escape from it. Thus leaning upon the bed with his arms stretched upon it and his head perhaps sunk between them, he presently creates that heightened temperature sufficient to arouse the destroyer. It enters into him—how, we know not yet—and he sinks unconscious to the floor, while the bed is quickly cold again.

"As to the four detectives—Inspector Frith and his men—pure chance saved the life of at least one of them, and by so doing, chance also prevented them from discovering that the bed in their midst was the seat of all the trouble. Had one among them taken up his watch upon it, he would certainly have died in the presence of his collaborators; but the men sat on chairs in the corners of the room, and the chairs were harmless. Whether their gas masks would indeed have saved them remains, of course, to be proved. I doubt it.

"Such, my friends, were the masterpieces of the Borgia, for whom the profoundest chemists worked willingly enough and by doing so doubtless made their fortunes. Their poisons were so designed to act that, by their very operation, the secrets of them were concealed, and all clues obliterated. Chemistry knows nothing of the supernatural, yet can, as in this case, achieve results that may well appear to be black magic.

"And if we, of this day, fail to find them out, it is easy to guess that in their own times, much that they caused to be done was set down to the operations of Heaven alone.

"Science will be deeply interested in your Borgia mattress, Sir Walter. Science, I doubt not, will carefully unpick it and make a series of very remarkable experiments; yet I make bold to believe that science may be baffled by the cunning and forgotten knowledge of men long dust. We shall see as to that."

He rose and bade Masters call Stephano. Then, with a few words, they parted, and each shook the old man's hand and expressed a deep and genuine gratitude before they did so.

"A little remains to add," said Signor Mannetti. "You shall hear what it is to-morrow. For the moment, 'Good-night!' It has been a crowning joy to my long life that I was able to do this service to new and valued friends."

In the servants' hall next morning Masters related what he had heard.

"And if you ask me," he concluded, "I draw back what I thought about him being younger than he pretends. He's older—old as the hills—older than that horror in the Grey Boom. He's a demon; and he's killed the old dog; and I believe he's a Borge himself if the truth was known."



CHAPTER XIII. TWO NOTES

They walked in the garden next morning, and Sir Walter delayed to write to Scotland Yard until after seeing Signor Mannetti again. The old gentleman descended to them presently, and declared himself over-fatigued.

"I must sit in the sun and go to sleep again after lunch," he said. "Stephano is annoyed with me, and hints at the doctor."

"Mannering will be here to lunch. You will understand that nobody is more deeply interested in these things than he."

"But yourself," said Mary. "Come and sit down and rest. You are looking very tired to-day."

"A little reaction—no more. It was worth it." He then proceeded where he had broken off on the preceding night.

"There remains only to tell you how I found myself caught up in your sad story. It had not occurred to you to wonder?"

"I confess I had never thought of that, signor. You made us forget such a trifling detail."

"But, none the less, you will want to know, Sir Walter. Our common friend, Colonel Vane, put the first thought in my head. He laid the train to which I set the match so well. He it was who described the Grey Room very exactly, and the moment that I heard of the ancient carved furniture, I knew that he spoke of curios concerning which I already had heard. The name of Lennox completed the clue, for that had already stirred memories in my ancient mind. I had listened to my father, when I was young, telling a story in which a bed and chairs and a gentleman named Lennox were connected. He spoke of an ancient Italian suite of three pieces, the work of craftsmen at Rome in the fifteenth century. It was papal furniture of the early Renaissance, well known to him as being in a Spanish collection—a hundred and fifty years ago that is now—and when these things came into the market, he rejoiced and hurried off to Valencia, where it was to be sold. For he was even such a man as your grandfather—a connoisseur and an enthusiastic collector. But, alas, his hopes were short-lived; he found himself in opposition to a deeper purse than his own, and it was Sir John Lennox, not my father, who secured the bed and the two chairs that go with it. These things, as I tell you, returned to my recollection, and, remembering them, I guessed myself upon the right track. The arms of the Borgia, and the successful experiment with the dog, Prince, proved that I was correct in guessing where the poison lay hidden."

"It is impossible to express my sense of your amazing goodness, or my gratitude, or my admiration for your genius," declared Sir Walter; but the other contradicted him.

"Genius is a great word to which I can lay no claim. I have done nothing at all that you yourself might not have done, given the same knowledge. As for gratitude, if indeed that is not too strong an expression also, you can show gratitude in a very simple manner, dear friend. I am a practical, old man and, to be honest, I very greatly covet the Borgia bed and chairs. Now, if indeed you feel that I am not asking too grand a favor—a favor out of all keeping with my good offices on your behalf—then let me purchase the bed and chairs, and convey them with me home to Rome. It is seemly that they should return to Rome, is it not? Rome would welcome them. I much desire to sleep in that bed—to be where I am so sure Prince Djem lay when he breathed his last. Yes, believe me, he received your bed as a gracious present from Alexander VI. The Borgia were generous of such gifts."

"The bed and chairs are yours, my dear signor, and the rest of the contents of the Grey Room, also, if you esteem them in any way."

"Positively I could not, Sir Walter."

"Indeed you shall. It is done, and leaves me greatly your debtor still."

"Then be it so. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Nor will I say that you oppress me with such extraordinary generosity, for is it not more blessed to give than receive? Heavens knows what dark evils the bed may have committed in the course of its career, but its activities are at an end. For me it shall bring no more than honest slumber. But the mattress—no. I do not want the mattress. That will be a nice present for the museum of your Royal College of Surgeons."

A week later the old man was sufficiently rested, and he returned home, taking his treasures with him. But he did not depart until he had won a promise that Sir Walter and Mary would visit him at Rome within the year.

Experts again descended upon Chadlands, packed the source of tribulation with exceeding care, and conveyed it to London for examination. Those destined to make the inquiry were much alive to their perils, and took no risk.

Six weeks later letters passed between England and Rome, and Sir Walter wrote to Signor Mannetti, sending such details as he was able to furnish.

"A thin, supple wire was found to run between the harmless flock of the mattress and the satin casing," wrote Sir Walter. "Experiments showed that neither the stuffing nor the outer case contained any harmful substance. But the wire, of which fifty miles wound over the upper and lower surfaces of the mattress under its satin upholstery, proved infinitely sensitive to heat, and gave off, or ejected at tremendous speed, an invisible, highly poisonous matter even at a lower temperature than that of a normal human being. Insects placed upon it perished in the course of a few hours, and it destroyed microscopic life and fish and frogs in water at comparatively low temperatures, that caused the living organisms no inconvenience until portions of the wire were introduced. A cat died in eight minutes; a monkey in ten. No pain or discomfort marked the operation of the wire on unconscious creatures. They sank into death as into sudden sleep, and examination revealed no physical effects whatever. The wire is an alloy, and the constituent metals have not yet been determined; but it is not an amalgam, for mercury is absent. The wire contains thallium and helium as the spectroscope shows; but its awful radioactivity and deadly emanation has yet to be explained. The chemical experts have a startling theory. They suspect there is a new element here—probably destined to occupy one of the last unfilled places of the Periodic Table, which chronicles all the elements known to science. Chemical analysis fails to reach the radio-active properties, and for their examination the electroscope and spinthariscope are needful. With these the radio-chemists are at work. The wire melted at a lower temperature than lead, but melting did not destroy its potency. After cooling, the metal retained its properties and was still responsive, as before, to warmth. But experiment shows that in a molten state, the metal of the wire increases in effect, and any living thing brought within a yard of it under this condition succumbs instantly. Its properties cannot be extracted, so far, from the actual composition of the wire. They prove also that the emanation from the warmed wire is exceedingly subtle, tenuous, and volatile. Save under conditions of super-heat, it only operates at two feet and a few inches, and the wire naturally grows cold very quickly. It is almost as light as aluminium. A gas mask does not arrest the poison; indeed, it evidently enters a body through the nearest point offered to it and a safe shield has not yet been discovered.

"I shall tell you more when we know more," concluded Sir Walter. "But at present it looks as though your prophecy were correct, and that science is not going to get at the bottom of the horrible secret easily. Dr. Mannering says that the properties of the elements have yet to be fully determined, while the subject of alloys was never suspected of containing such secrets as may prove to be the case. If more there is to learn, you shall learn it."

In his reply, Signor Mannetti declared that the Borgia bed continued to be a source of extreme satisfaction and comfort to him.

"As yet no vision has broken my slumbers, but I continue to hope that the Oriental features of Sultan Bajazet's brother may presently revisit the place of his taking off, and that Prince Djem will some night afford me the pleasure of a conversation. How much might we tell each other that neither of us knows!

"As to the wire, my friend, I will explain to you how that was probably created and, right or wrong, there is nobody on this earth at present who can prove my theory to be mistaken. Be sure that a medieval alchemist, searching in vain for elixir vitae, or the philosopher's stone, chanced upon this infernal synthesis and fusion. For him, no doubt, it proved a philosopher's stone in earnest, for the Borgia always extended a generous hand to those who could assist their damnable activities. Transmutation—so a skilled friend assures me—is now proved to be a fact, and another generation will be able perhaps to make gold, if the desire for that accursed mineral continues much longer to dominate mankind.

"Farewell for the present. Again to see you and your daughter is one of those pleasures lying in wait for me, to make next winter a season of gladness rather than dismay. But do not change your minds. One must keep faith with a man of eighty, or risk the possibilities of remorse."

THE END