Sir Walter persisted in his purpose and went to Florence. He believed that here Mary might find distractions and novelties to awaken interest which would come freshly into her life without the pain and poignancy of any recollection to lessen the work of peace. For himself he only desired to see her returning to content. Happiness he knew must be a condition far removed from her spirit for many days.
They stood one evening on the Piazza of Michelangelo and saw Florence, like a city of dim, red gold extended beneath them. The setting sunlight wove an enchantment over towers and roofs. It spread a veil of ineffable brightness upon the city and tinged green Arno also, where the river wound through the midst.
Sir Walter was quietly happy, because he knew that in a fortnight his friends, Ernest and Nelly Travers, would be at Florence. Mary, too, prepared to welcome them gladly, for her father's sake. He left his daughter largely undisturbed, and while they took their walks together, the old man, to whom neither music nor pictures conveyed much significance, let her wander at will, and the more readily because he found that art was beginning to exercise a precious influence over Mary's mind. There was none to guide her studies, but she pursued them with a plan of her own, and though at first the effort sometimes left her weary, yet she persisted until she began to perceive at least the immensity of the knowledge she desired to acquire.
Music soothed her mind; painting offered an interest, part sensuous, part intellectual. Perhaps she loved music best at first, since it brought a direct anodyne. In the sound of music she could bear to think of her brief love story. She even made her father come and listen presently to things that she began to value.
Their minds inevitably proceeded by different channels of thought, and while she strove resolutely to occupy herself with the new interests, and put away the agony of the past, till thinking was bearable again and a road to peace under her feet once more, Sir Walter seldom found himself passing many hours without recurrence of painful memories and a sustained longing to strip the darkness which buried them. To his forthright and simple intelligence, mystery was hateful, and the reflection that his home must for ever hold a profound and appalling mystery often thrust itself upon his thoughts, and even inclined him, in some moods, to see Chadlands no more. Yet a natural longing to return to the old environment, in which he could move with ease and comfort, gradually mastered him, and as the spring advanced he often sighed for Devonshire, yet wondered how he could do so. Then would return the gloomy history of the winter rolling over his spirit like a cloud, and the thought of going home again grew distasteful.
Mary, however, knew her father well enough, and at this lustrous hour, while Florence stretched beneath them in its quiet, evening beauty, she declared that they must not much longer delay their return.
"Plenty of time," he said. "I am not too old to learn, I find, and a man would indeed be a great fool if he could not learn in such a place as this. But though art can never mean much to me now, your case is different, and I am thankful to know that these things will be a great addition and interest to your future life. I'm a Philistine, and shall always so remain, but I'm a repentant one. I see my mistake too late."
"It's a new world, father," she said, "and it has done a great deal for an unhappy woman—not only in taking my thoughts off myself, but in lessening my suffering, too. I do not know why, or how, but music, and these great, solemn pictures painted by dead men, all touch my thoughts of dear Tom. I seem to see that there are so many more mighty ones dead than living. And yet not dead. They live in what they have made. And Tom lives in what he made—that was my love for him and his for me. He grows nearer and dearer than ever when I hear beautiful music. I can better bear to think of him at such times, and it will always help me to remember him."
"God bless art if it does so much," he said. "We come to it as little children, and I shall always be a child and never understand, but for you the valuable message will be received. May life never turn you away from these things in years to come."
"Never! Never!" she assured him. "Art has done too much for me. I shall not try to live my life without it. Already I feel I could not."
"What have you seen to-day?" he asked.
"I was at the Pitti all the morning. I liked best Fra Bartolommeo's great altar piece and Titian's portrait of Cardinal Ippolito dei Medici. You must see him—a strange, unhappy spirit only twenty-three years old. Two years afterwards he was poisoned, and his haunted, discontented eyes closed for ever. And the 'Concert'—so wonderful, with such a hunger-starved expression in the soul of the player. And Andrea del Sarto—how gracious and noble; but Henry James says he's second-rate, because his mind was second-rate, so I suppose he is, but not to me. He never will be to me. To-morrow you must come and see some of the things I specially love. I won't bore you. I don't know enough to bore you yet. Oh, and Allori's 'Judith'—so lovely, but I wonder if Allori did justice to her? Certainly his 'Judith' could never have done what the real Judith did. And there's a landscape by Rubens—dark and old—yet it reminded me of our woods where they open out above the valley."
He devoted the next morning to Mary, and wandered among the pictures with her. He strove to share her enthusiasm, and, indeed, did so sometimes. Then occurred a little incident, so trivial that they forgot all about it within an hour, yet were reminded of it at a very startling moment now fast approaching.
They had separated, and Sir Walter's eye was caught by a portrait. But he forgot it a moment later in passing interest of a blazoned coat of arms upon the frame—a golden bull's head on a red ground. The heraldic emblem was tarnished and inconspicuous, yet the spectator felt curiously conscious that it was not unfamiliar. It seemed that he had seen it already somewhere. He challenged Mary with it presently; but she had never observed it before to her recollection.
Sir Walter enjoyed his daughter's interest, and finding that his company among the pictures added to Mary's pleasure, while his comments caused her no apparent pain, he declared his intention of seeing more.
"You must tell me what you know," he said.
"It will be the blind leading the blind, dearest," she answered, "but my delight must be in finding things I think you'll like. The truth is that neither of us knows anything about what we ought to like."
"That's a very small matter," he declared. "We must begin by learning to like pictures at all. When Ernest comes, he will want us to live in his great touring car and fly about, so we should use our present time to the best advantage. Pictures do not attract him, and he will be very much surprised to hear that I have been looking at them."
"We must interest him, too, if we can."
"That would be impossible. Ernest does not understand pictures, and music gives him no pleasure. He regards art with suspicion, as a somewhat unmanly thing."
"Poor Mr. Travers!"
"Do not pity him, Mary. His life is sufficiently full without it."
"But I've lived to find out that no life can be." In due course Ernest and Nelly arrived, and, as Sir Walter had prophesied, their pleasure consisted in long motor drives to neighboring places and scenes of interest and beauty. His daughter, in the new light that was glimmering for her, found her father's friends had shrunk a little. She could speak with them and share their interests less whole-heartedly than of old; but they set it down to her tribulation and tried to "rouse" her. Ernest Travers even lamented her new-found interests and hoped they were "only a passing phase."
"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 theworld that knows England, I have recently been profoundlyinterested and moved at the amazing events reported ashappening at Chadlands, in the County of Devon, under yourroof. The circumstances were related in Italian journalswith no great detail, but I read them in the 'Times'newspaper, being familiar with your language and a greatlover of your country."I had already conceived the idea of communicating with youwhen—so small is the world in this our time—accidentactually threw me into the society of one of your personalfriends. At an entertainment given by the British Ambassadorat Rome, a young soldier, one Colonel Vane, was able to dome some service in a crush of people, and I enjoyed theprivilege of his acquaintance as the result. I would nothave inflicted myself upon another generation, but he tookan interest in conversing with one who knew his own language.He was also intelligent—for a military man. Needless tosay, he made no allusion to the tragedy at Chadlands, butwhen he spoke of espionage in war and kindred matters, Ifound him familiar with the details concerning the death ofthe great English detective, Peter Hardcastle. I then askedhim, as being myself deeply interested in the matter, whetherit would be possible to get further and fuller details of thestory of 'the Grey Room,' whereupon he told me, to myamazement, that he had been at Chadlands when your lamentedson-in-law, Captain Thomas May, passed out of life. I thenrecollected Colonel Vane's name, among others mentioned inthe 'Times,' as at Chadlands when the disaster occurred."Finding that my curiosity was not idle, Colonel Vane acceptedan invitation to dinner, and I enjoyed the pleasure ofentertaining him and learning many personal and intimateparticulars of the event. These were imparted in confidence,and he knew that I should not abuse his trust. Indeed, I hadalready told him that it was my determination to communicatewith you upon the strength of his narrative."It seems improbable that anything I can say will bear uponthe case, and I may presently find that I lack the means toserve you, or throw light where all is so profoundly buriedin darkness. Yet I am not sure. Small things will oftenlead to greater, and though the past is unhappily beyondrecall, since our Maker Himself cannot undo the work ofyesterday, or obliterate events embalmed in vanished time,yet there is always the future; and if we could but readthe past aright, which we never can, then the future wouldprove less of a painful riddle than mankind generallyfinds it."If, then, I can help you to read the past, I may at leastmodify your anxieties in the future; and should I, by aremote chance, be right in my suspicions, it is quiteimperative that I place myself at your service for thesake of mankind. In a word, a great crime has beencommitted, and the situation is possibly such that furthercapital crimes will follow it. I affirm nothing, but Iconceive the agency responsible for these murders tobe still active, since the police have been so completelyfoiled. At Chadlands there may still remain an unsleepingdanger to those who follow you—a danger, indeed, to allhuman life, so long as it is permitted to persist. I write,of course, assuming you to be desirous of clearing thisabominable mystery, both for your own satisfaction and thecredit of your house. "There is but little to hope from me,and I would beg you not to feel sanguine in any way. Yetthis I do believe: that if there is one man in the worldto-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 ahorror; and to do so would give one the most activesatisfaction. But I promise nothing."If I should be on the right track, however, let me explainthe direction in which my mind is moving. Human knowledgemay not be equal to any solution, and I may fail accordingly.It may even be possible that the Rev. Septimus May did noterr, and that at the cost of his life he exorcised somespirit whose operations were permitted for reasons hid inthe mind of its Creator; but, so far as I am concerned, Ibelieve otherwise. And if I should prove correct, it willbe possible to show that all has fallen out in a mannerconsonant with human reason and explicable by humanunderstanding. I therefore came to England, glad of theexcuse to do so, and waited upon you at your manor, only tohear, 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 servantdirected me that letters should for the moment be sent. Ifyou are returning soon, I wait for you. If not, it may bepossible to meet in Italy. But I should prefer to thinkyou return ere long, for I cannot be of practical serviceuntil I have myself, with your permission, visited yourhouse and seen the Grey Room with my own eyes."I beg you will accept my assurances of kindly regard andsympathy in the great sufferings you and Madame May havebeen called upon to endure."Until I hear from you, I remain at Claridge's Hotel inLondon."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."
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."