Part 15

The enraged little deputy understood. And she got Miss Senter out of the drawing-room without attracting notice. "The master wishes to see the signorina," she said, in a concentrated undertone. "I burn with indignation, for it is an insolent intrusion; it is an insult to his Excellency, who no doubt is a prince in his own country. But they _would_ not go, in spite of all I could say. Nor would they tell me their errand--brutes!" And with her skirts quivering she led the way to the outer hall.

"Find out what these men want, Barly," said Peter, when his sister appeared.

And then the chief officer again told his story.

"Mercy!" said Miss Senter, "how dreadful. Somebody was killed, Peter, about seven o'clock this evening, in a cafe near the Rialto, and they say they have just found a clew which appears to track the assassin to this very door! And they wish to search."

"What an absurd idea! With the whole place crowded and blazing with lights, as it is to-night, a mouse couldn't hide," said Peter. "Tell them so."

"They repeat that they must search," said Miss Senter. "But if you will exert your authority, Peter--make use of your official position--I am sure we need not submit to such a thing."

Peter, however, was helpless without his vice-consul; he had no clear idea as to what his powers were or were not; he had never informed himself.

Carmela, greatly excited, had drawn Miss Senter aside. "There was a sixth man with those musicians!" she whispered. "I saw him. He did not play, but he sat behind them. And he has only just gone. Five minutes ago."

Miss Senter repeated the information to the chief officer. The officer immediately detached two men to follow this important clew; he himself, with the third, would remain to go through the apartment, as a matter of form.

"As the rooms are all open and lighted," said Miss Senter in English to her brother, "it will only take a few minutes, if go they must, and no one need know anything about it. But whom shall we send with them? If we call Ercole, it will attract attention; and Florian's men, who were due at another place, have already gone. We could have Andrea come up. But no; Giorgio will do best of all. Call Giorgio to go with these men," she added in Italian to Carmela.

"Let _me_ conduct them!" answered the deputy.

"Yes; on the whole, she will be better than any one," said Miss Senter to Peter. "She is so angry at what she calls the insult to you, and so excited about the mysterious person who was with the musicians, that she will bully them and hurry them off to look for him in no time. They can begin with a peep into the drawing-room; I'll tell them to keep themselves hidden." She turned and explained her idea in Italian to the officer; they could glance into the drawing-room first, and then Carmela would take them through all the other rooms; the Consul, though he had the power of refusal, would permit this liberty in the cause of justice. Their search, however, would be unavailing; under the circumstances, it was impossible that any one should have taken refuge there, unless it was that one extra man who had been admitted with the musicians to the gallery. And he was already gone.

"Perhaps he only pretended to go?" suggested the officer. "With permission, I will lock this door." And he did so.

They went to the drawing-room, the policemen moving quietly, close to the wall. When the last anteroom was reached, the two men hid themselves behind the tapestries that draped the door, and, making loop-holes among the folds, peeped into the ball-room. For it was at that moment a ball-room. The children had again taken up their whirling dance around Ercole, and the gondolier, who had now a small child perched on each of his shoulders, was singing with them in a clear tenor, having caught the syllables from having heard them shouted about fifty times:

"Yankee dooda dooda doo, Yankee dooda dandee, Barkeet cakar vera goo, Arso molarsa candee."

Miss Senter had sent Peter back to his guests. She herself, standing between the tapestries as though she were looking on from the doorway, named to the hidden policemen, as well as she could amid the loud singing within, all the persons present, one by one. Finally her list came to a close. "And that is Mr. Barlow, the American who lives at the Danieli; and the one near the Christmas-tree is Mr. Douglas, who has the Palazzo Dario. And the tall, large gentleman with silver hair is Sir William Kay. That is all, except the clown, who is our gondolier, and the five musicians up in the gallery; can you see them from here? If not, Carmela can take you up." And then she thought, with a sudden little shudder, that perhaps the officer's idea was not, after all, impossible; perhaps, indeed, that extra man had only pretended to go!

The policemen signified that this was enough as regarded the drawing-room; they withdrew softly, and waited outside the door.

"Now take them through all the other rooms, Carmela," whispered the Consuless. "Be as quiet about it as you can, so that no one need know. And when they have finally gone, come and stand for a moment between these curtains, as a sign. If, by any chance, they _should_ discover any one--"

"The signorina need not be frightened; I saw the man go myself! And he could not have re-entered without my knowledge. As for these beasts of policemen--" And Carmela's eyes flashed, while her set lips seemed to say, "Trust _me_ to hustle them out!"

"Run up first and tell the musicians to play the music I sent them," said the Consuless. And then she rejoined her guests.

For the next dance was to be a Virginia Reel, and some of the elders were to join the children; the two lines, when arranged, extended down half the length of the long room. It began with great spirit, the clown and the three Kings of Orient dancing at the end of the file.

"It is really Sir Roger de Coverley, an English dance," said Lady Kay to the Russian princess, who was looking on from the chair next her own. "But the Senters like to call it a Virginia Reel, they are so patriotic. And we never contradict the Senters, you know," added the English lady, laughing; "we let them have their way."

"It seems to me a vurra good way," answered the princess, who was a plain-looking old woman with a charming smile. "I have nowhere seen so many reech toyees" (here she glanced at the costly playthings heaped on a table near by). "Nor haf I, in _Italy_, seen so many tings to eat. With so moche champagne."

"Yes, they always do that," answered the baronet's wife. "They are so very lavish. And very kind."

Miss Senter herself was dancing the reel. Once she thought there was a quaver in the music, and, glancing up quickly towards the gallery, she perceived the heads of the policemen behind the players. The players, however, recovered themselves immediately, and upon looking up again a moment afterwards she saw with relief that the sinister apparition had vanished. Ten minutes later the trim little figure of the deputy appeared between the tapestries of the doorway. Miss Senter, still dancing, nodded slightly, as a signal that she perceived her, and then Carmela, with an answering nod and one admiring look at Ercole, disappeared. After all, now that there had been a suspicion about that extra man, it _was_ a comfort to have had the apartment searched; it would make the moment of going to bed easier, the American lady reflected.

It was now half-past eleven. By midnight the last sleepy child had been carried down the marble stairway, the music ceased, and the musicians departed. The elders, glad that the noise was over, remained half an hour longer; then they took leave. Only Lady Kay and her husband were left; they had waited to take a closer look at Miss Senter's Christmas present to her brother, which was a large and beautifully executed copy of Tintoretto's "Bacchus and Ariadne," from the Anticollegio of the Doge's Palace. It had been placed temporarily on the wall behind the Christmas-tree.

"How exquisite!" said Lady Kay, with a long sigh. "You are most fortunate, Mr. Senter."

"Oh yes. Though I don't quite know what they will think of it in Rochester, New York," answered Peter, chuckling.

Sir William and his wife intended to walk home. When it was cold they preferred to walk rather than go to and fro in a gondola; and as they were old residents, they knew every turn of the intricate burrowing chinks in all the quarters that serve as footways. When they took leave at one o'clock, Peter and Miss Senter, with American friendliness, accompanied them to the outer door. Peter was about to open this door when it was swung back, and a figure reeled in--Ercole. He had taken off his clown's dress, and wore now his gondolier's costume; but this costume was in disorder, and his face was darkly red--a purple red.

"Why, Ercole, is it you? What is the matter?" said Miss Senter, as he staggered against the wall.

"Oh, her Excellency the Consuless, I have been _beaten_!"

"Beaten? Where have you been? I thought you were down at the landing with Andrea," said Miss Senter.

"The antiquity-dealer suffocates," muttered Ercole. "And Giorgio--dead!"

This "dead" (_morto!_) even Peter understood. "Dead! What is he saying, Barly?"

"The man is saying, Mr. Senter, that an antiquity-dealer is suffocating, and that somebody he calls Giorgio is dead," translated the pink-cheeked, portly Lady Kay, in her sweet voice. "It's your gondolier, isn't it--the one who played the clown so nicely? What a pity! He has been drinking, I fear."

While she was saying this, Sir William was leading Ercole farther away from the ladies.

"Yes, he is drunk," said Peter, looking at him. "Too bad! We must have help. Let's see; Andrea is down at the landing. I'll get him. And you call Giorgio, Barly."

Here Ercole, held by Sir William, gave a maddened cry, and threw his head about violently.

"Oh, don't leave my husband alone with him, Mr. Senter," said Lady Kay, alarmed. "He is a very powerful young man, and his eyes are dreadful. To me he looks as if he were mad. Those somersaults have affected his head."

And the gondolier's eyes were indeed strangely bloodshot and wild. Miss Senter had hurried to the kitchen. But Giorgio was not there. She came back, and found Ercole struggling with the Englishman and her brother.

"Let me try," she said. "I am not afraid of him. Ercole," she continued, speaking gently in Italian, "go to your room now, and go to bed quietly; everything will be all right to-morrow."

Ercole writhed in Sir William's grasp. "The antiquity-dealer! And Giorgio--dead!"

"Where is Giorgio, Barly?" said Peter, angrily, as he helped Sir William in securing the gondolier. "And where are the other servants? Where's Carmela? Find them, and send one down to the landing for Andrea, and the other for Giorgio. Quick!"

"Oh, Peter, I've been, and I couldn't find Giorgio or any one."

"Carmela was in your bedroom not long ago," said Lady Kay, watching the gondolier's contortions nervously; "she helped me put on my cloak."

Miss Senter ran to her bedroom, her train flying in the haste she made. But in a moment she was back again. "There is no one there. Oh, where are they all?"

Ercole, hearing her voice, peered at her with his crimsoned eyes, and then, breaking loose suddenly, he came and caught hold of her arm. "The antiquity-room. _Will_ she come?"

Peter and Sir William dragged him away by main force.

"The gentlemen, then. Will _they_ come?" said the gondolier, hoarsely. And again freeing himself with two strokes of his powerful arms, he passed out (for the door was still open), and began to descend the outside staircase.

"Oh, thank Heaven, he has gone!" "Oh, lock the door!" cried the two ladies together.

"We must follow him, Mr. Senter," said Sir William. "He is plainly mad from drink, and may do some harm."

"Yes; and down there Andrea can help us," answered Peter.

And the two gentlemen hastened down the staircase. It was a very long flight with three turns. The court below was brilliantly lighted by many wall lamps.

"I _don't_ like my husband's going down," said Lady Kay, in a tremor, as she stood on the landing outside. "If they are going to seize him, the more of us the better; don't you think so? For while they are holding him, you and I could run across and get that other man in from the riva."

But Miss Senter was not there. She had rushed back into the house, and was now calling with all her strength: "Giorgio! Carmela! Assunta! Beppa!" There was no answer, and, seized with a fresh panic by the strangeness of this silence, she hastened out again and joined Lady Kay, who was already half-way down the stairs. The gondolier had not turned towards the water entrance; he had crossed the court in the opposite direction, and now he was passing through a broad, low door which led into the hall on the ground-floor behind the show-room of Z. Pelham, throwing open as he did so both wings of this entrance, so that the light from the court entered in a broad beam across the stone pavement.

"My dear, _don't_ go in!" "Oh, Peter, stop! stop!" cried the two ladies, as they breathlessly descended the last flight.

But Peter and Sir William had paid no attention. Quickly detaching two of the lamps from the wall, they had followed the madman.

"The other gondolier!" gasped Lady Kay.

And the two women ran swiftly to the water-door and threw it open, Miss Senter calling, in Italian: "Andrea! come _instantly_!"

The little riva along the small canal was also brightly lighted. But there was no one there. And opposite there was only a long blank wall.

"Oh, we must not leave them a moment longer," said Lady Kay.

And again they rushed across the broad court, this time entering the dark water-story; for it was better to enter, dreadful though it was, than to remain outside, not knowing what might be happening within. Ercole meanwhile had made his way into Mr. Pelham's show-room, and here he had struck a match and lighted a candle. As he had left the door of the show-room open, those who were without could see him, and they stopped for a moment to watch what he would do next. It was now a group of four, for the ladies had joined the other two, Miss Senter whispering to her brother:

"Andrea isn't there!"

The gondolier bent down, and began to drag something across the floor and out to the open space behind. "Here!" he said, turning his purple face towards their lamps. "I can no more." And he sat down suddenly on the pavement, and let his head and arms fall forward over his knees.

Peter and Sir William, giving their lamps to the ladies, were approaching cautiously, in order to secure him while he was quiet, when they saw, to their horror, two human legs and feet protruding from the object which he had dragged forth.

"Why, it's the second-hand dealer; it's Z. Pelham!" said Peter, in fresh excitement. "I know his arctics. Bring the lamp, Barly. Quick!"

The two ladies came nearer, keeping one eye upon Ercole. Peter and Sir William with some difficulty cut the rope, and unwound two woollen coverlids and a sheet. Within, almost suffocated, with his hands tied behind him, was the dealer.

"I suppose _he_ did this!" whispered Lady Kay to Miss Senter, her pink face white, as she indicated the motionless gondolier.

Sir William lifted the dealer's head, while Peter loosened his collar.

"Now will Excellencies look for Giorgio," muttered Ercole, without changing his position.

"He says now will you look for Giorgio," translated Lady Kay. "That he _tells_ his crimes shows that he really _is_ mad!" she added, in a whisper.

"No; I think he has come to for the moment, and that's why he tells," said Peter, hastily rubbing Z. Pelham's chest. "Ask him where we shall look, Barly; ask while he's lucid."

"Where must we look for Giorgio, Ercole?" quavered Miss Senter, her Italian coming out with the oddest pronunciation.

"Back stairs," answered the gondolier.

"Back stairs, he says," translated Lady Kay.

"There are no back stairs," replied Peter.

"I'll put this coverlid under his back. That will make him breathe better," said the Englishman, his sympathies roused by the forlorn plight of the little dealer, whose carefully strapped arctic shoes gave ironical emphasis to his helplessness.

Meanwhile Miss Senter, saying "Yes, there _are_ stairs," had run across the pavement with her lamp, found the door at the back of the hall, and opened it. Z. Pelham began to breathe more regularly, although he had not yet opened his eyes. Sir William drew him farther away from the gondolier, and then he and Peter hastened across and looked up the spiral. "It goes to the attics," explained Miss Senter.

"You two stand here at the bottom with one lamp, and Sir William and I will go up with the other," said Peter. "Keep your eye on Ercole, Barly, and if he so much as _moves_, come right up and join us."

"Wait an instant," said the Englishman. "Stay here with Mr. Senter, Gertrude." Making a detour so as not to rouse the gondolier, he entered the antiquity-dealer's show-room and tried to open the outer door. But it was locked, and the key was not there. "No use," he said, coming hurriedly back; "I had hoped to get help from outside to watch him while we go up. Now remember, Gertrude, you and Miss Senter are to come up and join us _instantly_ if he leaves his place." And then he and Peter ascended the winding steps, carrying one of the lamps. Round and round went the gleam of their light, and the two ladies at the bottom, standing with their skirts caught up ready to run, watched the still form of the gondolier in the distance, visible in the gleam of the candle burning in the show-room. It seemed an hour. But a full minute had not gone when Peter's voice above cried out:

"It's Giorgio! Good God! Killed! Bring up the other light."

And the two ladies rushed up together. There on the landing lay the poor old cook, his eyes closed, his face ghastly, his white jacket deeply stained with blood. Miss Senter, who was really attached to the old man, began to cry.

"He isn't quite dead," said Peter, who had been listening for the heart. "But we must get him out of this icy place. Then we'll tie up Ercoly--we can use that rope--and after he is secured, I can go for help. Here, you take his head and shoulders, Sir William; you are the strongest. And I'll take his body. Barly can take the feet."

"It will be difficult," said the Englishman. "These steep stairs--"

But Peter, when roused, was a veritable little lion. "Come on," he said; "we can do it."

"Please go down first and see if Ercole is still quiet," begged Miss Senter of Lady Kay. And the Englishwoman, who now had both lamps, went down and came back in thirty seconds; she never knew how she did it. "He has not stirred," she said. And then old Giorgio was borne down, and out to the brilliantly lighted court beyond.

"Now," said Peter, whose face was bathed with great drops of perspiration, "we'll first secure him," and he indicated Ercole by pointing his thumb backward over his shoulder towards the water-story, "and then I'll go for a doctor and the police."

But as he spoke, coming out of the door upon his hands and knees, appeared Z. Pelham, who, as soon as he saw the cook's prostrate body, called back, hoarsely, in Italian: "Ercole, get my brandy-flask."

"Oh, don't call him!" said Lady Kay, in terror, clapping a fold of her skirt tightly over the dealer's mouth and holding it there. "He is mad--quite mad!"

Mr. Pelham collapsed.

"Good heavens! Gertrude, don't suffocate the poor creature a second time," said Sir William, pulling his wife away.

Z. Pelham, released, raised his head. "Ercole has been bad beat, and that makes him not genteel," he explained. "Ercole, bring my brandy-flask," he called again, in Italian, and the effort he made to break through his hoarseness brought out the words in a sudden wild yell. "My voice a little deranged is," he added, apologetically, in English.

They could now hear the steps of the gondolier within, and the ladies moved to a distance as he appeared, walking unsteadily, the flask in his hand. "Not dead?" he said, trying to see Giorgio. But his eyes closed convulsively, and as soon as the dealer had taken the flask, down he went, or half fell, on the pavement as before, with his head thrown forward over his knees. Sir William placed himself promptly by his side, while Peter ran within to get the rope. Z. Pelham, uncorking the flask, poured a little brandy between Giorgio's pale lips. "You have all mistake," he said to Sir William as he did this. "Ercole was bad beat by a third partee who has done it all--me and he and this died cook; a third partee was done it all." And he chafed the cook's temples with brandy.

"A third party?" said Peter, who had returned with the rope. "Who?"

"I know not; they knocked me from behind. It was lightning to me, in _my_ head also," answered Z. Pelham, going on with his chafing.

"Come here, Barly," said Peter, taking command. "Say what I tell you. Don't be afraid; Sir William and I will grab him if he stirs. Say, 'Ercoly, who hurt you?'"

"Ercole, who hurt you?" said Miss Senter, tremulously.

"_Non so. Un demonio_," answered the gondolier, his head still on his knees.

"He says he doesn't know. A demon," said Lady Kay.

"Ask when it happened."

"It was after he had taken the presents from the tree," translated Lady Kay again. "He was struck, dragged down the back stairs, gagged, and left in the antiquity-room. He has only just now been able to free himself."

"How could he act the clown, then?" pursued Peter.

"He says he hasn't been a clown or seen a clown. Oh, Peter, it was some one else disguised! Who could it have been?" cried Miss Senter, running away as if to fly up the staircase, and then in her terror running back again.

The cook's eyes had now opened. "He says see what is stoled," said Mr. Pelham, administering more brandy. Mr. Pelham was seated, tailor fashion, on the pavement, his feet in their arctics under him.

"Giorgio knows something about it, too," said Peter. "Ask him, Barly."

But Miss Senter was incapable of speaking; she had hidden her face on Lady Kay's shoulder, shuddering. The clown with whom she had talked, who had danced all the evening with the children, was an assassin! A strange and savage murderer!

"I'll do it," said the Englishman. And bending over Giorgio, he asked, in correct, stiff Italian: "Do you know who hurt you?"

"A tall, dark man. I never saw him before," answered the cook, or rather his lips formed those words. "He stabbed me after he had struck down Ercole."

"Now he is again gone," soliloquized Z. Pelham, as Giorgio's eyes closed; "I have fear this time he is truly died!" And he chafed the cook's temples anew.

"It's all clear now," said Peter, "and Ercoly isn't mad; only hurt in some way. So I'll go for help at once."

"Oh, Peter, you always get lost!" moaned his sister.

And it was true that the Consul almost invariably lost his way in the labyrinth of chinks behind the palace.

"I'll go," said the Englishman. "It's not very late" (he looked at his watch); "I shall be sure to find some one."

"You must let me go with you, my dear," urged Lady Kay.

In three minutes they were back with two men. "I've brought these two, and there's a doctor coming. And I sent word to the police," said the Englishman.