“The police!”
We moved on . . .
Two seagoing yachts were at anchor, and out on the lagoon we met a freshening breeze. One of the yachts belonged to an English peer, the other. Silver Heels, was Brownlow Wilton’s beautiful white cruiser, built on the lines of an ocean greyhound. All seemed to be quiet on board, and I wondered if the celebrated American was being entertained at the Palazzo da Rosa.
“Where to now, sir?”
“Anywhere you like,” I answered wearily.
The man seemed to understand my mood. I believe he thought I was a dejected lover whose mistress had deserted him. Indeed, he was not far wrong.
We turned into a side canal where there were ancient windows, walls and trellises draped in clematis and passion flower, a spot, as I saw at a glance, perpetuated by many painters. In the dusk it had a ghostly beauty. Here the motorboat seemed a desecration, and I wished that I had chartered a gondola. Even as the thought crossed my mind, one of those swan-like crafts, carrying the bearings of some noble family, and propelled by a splendidly uniformed gondolier, swung silently around a comer, heralded only by the curious cry of the man at the oar.
My fellow checked his engine.
“From the Palazzo da Rosa!” he said and gazed back fascinatedly.
Idly, for I was not really interested, I turned and stared back also. There was but one passenger in the gondola . . .
It was Rudolf Adion!
“Stop!” I ordered sharply as the man was about to restart his engine. “I want to watch.”
For I had seen something else.
On the balcony of a crumbling old mansion, once no doubt the home of a merchant prince but now falling into ruin, a woman was standing. Some trick of reflected light from across the canal made her features clearly visible. She wore a gaily-colored showl which left one arm and shoulder bare.
She was leaning on the rail of the balcony, staring down at the passing gondola—and as I watched, eagerly, almost breathlessly, I saw that the gondolier had checked his graceful boat with that easy, sweeping movement which is quite beyond the power of an amateur oarsman. Rudolph Adion was standing up, his eyes raised. As I watched, the woman dropped a rose to which, I was almost sure, a note was attached!
Adion caught it deftly, kissed his fingers to the beauty on the balcony and resumed his seat. As the gondola swung on and was lost in deep shadows of a tall, old palace beyond:
“Ah!” sighed the motor launch driver—and he also kissed his fingers to the balcony—”a tryst—how beautiful!”
She who had made the assignation had disappeared. But there was no possibility of mistake. She was the woman I had seen with Ardatha—the woman whom Nayland Smith had described as
“Major Baden is in his private apartments,” he said, “engaged on important official business. He has given orders that he is not to be disturbed. And so”—he shrugged his shoulders—”what can I do?”
I confess I was growing weary of those oft-repeated words.
“But I assure you,” I cried excitedly, “that he is
“That is possible, Mr. Kerrigan. I have said that some of the great men who visit Venice incognito have sometimes other affairs than affairs of State. But since, in the first place, I am not supposed to know that Rudolf Adion is at the Palazzo at all what steps can I take? I have one of my best officers on duty there and this is his report. What more can I do?”
“Nothing!” I groaned!
“In regard to protecting this minister, nothing, I fear. But the other matter—yes! This woman whom you describe is known to be an accomplice of these people who seek the life of Rudolf Adion?”
“She is.”
“Then we shall set out to find her, Mr. Kerrigan! I shall be ready in five minutes.”
Complete darkness had come when we reached the canal in which I had passed the dictator, but the light of a quarter moon painted Venice with silver. I travelled now in one of those sinister-looking black boats to which my attention had been drawn earlier.
“There is the balcony,” I said, “directly over us.”
Colonel Correnti looked up and then stared at me quite blankly.
“I find it very difficult to believe, Mr. Kerrigan,” he said. “Do not misunderstand me—I am not doubting your word. I am only doubting if you have selected the right balcony.”
“There is no doubt about it,” I said irritably.
“Then the matter is certainly very strange.”
He glanced at the two plain-clothes police officers who accompanied us. I had met them before, one, Stocco, was he who spoke good English.
“Why?”
“Because this is the back of the old Palazzo Mori. It is the property of the Mori family, but as you see it is in a state of dilapidation. It has not been occupied, I assure you, for many, many years. I know for a fact that it is unfurnished.”
“This does not interest me,” I replied, now getting angry. “What I have stated is fact. Great issues are at stake, and I suggest that we obtain a key and search this place.”
He turned with a despairing gesture to his subordinates.
“Where are the keys of the Palazzo Mori?”
There was a consultation, in which the man who drove the motor launch took part.
“The Mori family, alas, is ruined,” said Correnti, “and its remaining members are spread all over the world. I do not know where. The keys of the palazzo are with the lawyer Borgese, and it would be difficult, I fear, to find him tonight.”
“Also a waste of time,” I replied, for I knew what Nayland Smith would have done in the circumstances. “From the balustrade of the steps there to that lower iron balcony is an easy matter for an active man. We are all active men, I take it? Even from here one can see that the latchet of the window is broken. Here is our way in. Why do we hesitate?”
The chief of police seemed to have doubts, but recognizing, I suppose, what a terrible responsibility rested upon his shoulders, finally, although reluctantly, he consented.
The police boat was drawn up beside the steps, and I, first in my eagerness, clambered on to the roof of the cabin, from there sprang to the decaying stonework of the balustrade and climbed to the top. Balancing somewhat hazardously and reaching up, I found that I could just grasp the ornamental ironwork which I had pointed out.
“Give me a lift,” I directed Stocco, who stood beside me.
He did so. The boat rocked, but he succeeded in lifting me high enough to enable me to release my left hand and to grasp the upper railing. The rest was easy.
Colonel Correnti, as Stocco in turn was hoisted up beside me, cried out some order.
“We are to go,” said the detective, “down to the main door, open it if possible and admit the chief.”
I put my shoulder to the broken lattice, and it burst open immediately. Out of silvery moonlight I stepped into complete darkness. My companion produced a flashlamp.
I found myself in a room which at some time had been a bedroom. It was quite denuded of furniture, but here and there remained fragments of mouldy tapestry. And on the once-polished floor I detected marks to show where an old-fashioned four-poster bed had rested.
“Let us hope the doors are not locked,” said Stocco.
However, this one at least was not.
“Upstairs first!” I said eagerly, as we stepped out on to the landing.
Looking over a heavily carved handrail, in the light of the flash-lamp directed downwards I saw the sweep of a marble staircase lost in Gothic gloom. A great shadowy hall lay below, with ghostly pillars amid which our
