William Le Queux

“ Again, suppose that on the day and hour appointed for taking measurements at the castle of Threave the sun was hidden by the clouds? Should we be compelled to wait another year before our measurements could be taken with sufficient accuracy?
This fear haunted me as I wandered through Bloomsbury towards Harpur Street, a sudden desire having seized me to examine again the exterior of that mysterious house. It struck me that a watch should be kept upon that smooth-faced fellow Selby, by which means we might be enabled to foil any attempt to filch the treasure from us. ”

“ The shutters of the basement were still closed, and upon the area gate was a stout chain and heavy padlock. It was a roomy yet depressing place, more depressing than any other in the whole of Bloomsbury, a strange air of mystery pervading it from basement to attic.
My first impulse was to ascend those neglected steps and inquire for Lady Judith; but, on reflection an instant later, the fact that she had withdrawn so quickly from the window made it evident that she did not wish me to discover here there—that, indeed, she was in Selby’s house in secrecy. ”

“ What I had read of the great treasures of the once magnificent Abbey of Crowland and of the emeralds of the notorious Lucrezia Borgia whetted my curiosity and aroused my eagerness to commence a real treasure hunt in earnest. Stories of buried treasure have always interested me, and I knew that in the troublous times in England, during the dissolution of the monasteries and the civil wars, everyone hid his wealth for fear of seizure. ”

“ My love for the antique had brought into my life one of the strangest episodes experienced by any man, yet in those breathless moments, as I tore across Europe, I thought only of regaining possession of my remarkable treasure, and of obtaining the forbidden knowledge contained therein.
Hour after hour dragged slowly by. At Genoa, long after the sun had risen, I got out for a cup of coffee in that ugly and rather dirty buffet which travellers in Italy know so well. Then re-entering, we started off up the deep valleys and across the broad wine-lands of Asti towards Turin. ”

“ It was, indeed, a memorable day when I halted before the white, almost windowless house of the prior of San Sisto and knocked twice at its plain, green-painted door. The sun-blanched, time-mellowed city of Florence lay silent, glaring, and deserted in the blazing noon of a July day. The Florentines had fled to the mountains for air. The persiennes, or sun-shutters, were everywhere closed, the shops shut, the people slumbering, and the silence only broken by the heat-song of the chirping cicale in the scorched trees at the end of the Lung Arno. ”

“ For a moment, full of vague regret, I watched her departure, then turned on my heel and strolled down Park Lane into Piccadilly on my return to Dover Street, my mind full of that sweet-faced woman.
Those strange words of hers rang in my ears. At what did she hint? Tragedy, deep and mysterious, was underlying it all, I was confident, yet as a man of action I felt impelled towards that other spot mentioned in The Closed Book—the grim castle of Threave, that scene of foul deeds, that through the Middle Ages was the home of the Black Douglas. ”

“ I saw that her eyelids trembled slightly, and I, folding her hand in farewell, pressed it with a deep meaning which she understood, and to which she responded.
“But we are friends, Lady Judith; we are friends, are we not?”
In response she drew a long sigh, and shook her head, saying, “Mr Kennedy, I know you are my friend, and one day, perhaps, I shall require to put your friendship to the test. Until then, let us remain apart, because it will be best so. You know the fears I have—the fear that evil may befall you.” ”

“ There exist few places in the heart of London that are adapted for lovers’ walks and lovers’ talks, and those few spots are so well patronised that the majority of lovers carefully avoid them. Romance is enacted among the smoke-blackened bricks and mortar of London just as often as in the briar-scented country lane or on the shingly beach of the popular seaside resort. The quiet thoroughfares of London, where one knows not his neighbour, are always more private than any country lane, with its sneaking yokels and the local gossip of its nearest village. ”

“ Surely that great busy thoroughfare was a strange place in which to court a woman’s love! But love is always one of life’s ironies. Many are the world’s wonders; but surely Honour, Conscience, and Love are the three greatest. They will never be explained, and never cease to be bewildering. Of such are the source and the end of what is wonderful in our life—the sea and the shower, the aggregate whereof is in God and the atom in man.
I saw from her countenance, and knew from the trembling of her hand, that she would confide in me if only she dared. The mystery of it all was maddening. ”

“ To His Holiness’s enemies the mere touch of my ladie’s soft hand meant certain death, and feastes were given at the which those singled out were swept away like flies. None who dared to thwart the Borgia Pope or the lord Duke of Valentinois escaped swift and certain destruction. For them, death lurked at all times no matter how much care they took of their personal safetie. The fiendish ingenuity of Cesare Borgia showed itself in divers and sundry ways all to encompass the death of rivals that the House of Borgia became paramount, and its power overwhelming. ”

“ The jewels we examined were, however, magnificent in their antique gold settings. Three collars of wonderful green gems, each emerald the size of one’s thumb nail, and each set separately to form drops, were the first ornaments we drew forth—emerald collars of which we knew the world had never seen the equal. Several bracelets, pairs of earrings, and pendants were also among the collection; one emerald, unset, and evidently the greatest treasure, being almost the size of a pigeon’s egg—a truly marvellous set of gems, the like of which none of us had ever before set eyes upon. ”

“ My friend Wyman was as shrewd a man as any in London, and this fighting with conspirators was work just to his liking. He was one of those men who, in whatever tight corner they find themselves, either at home or abroad, always managed to wriggle out of it.
In the first place, we had no knowledge of the character of the man with whom we had to deal; while, in the second, we were utterly in the dark as to the motive of the conspiracy against me from the moment when the rare Arnoldus had passed into my hand. ”

“ In reply to my question, Enrico told me that he lived with his mother in Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, the thoroughfare running parallel with Saffron Hill. They have been five years in London: five sad, despairing years. Ah, the English! they were not cattiva. Oh, no! It was their amazing climate that made them what they were. He pitied London people. How happy they would all be if they only lived under the blue sky of rural Tuscany! And so he went on, just as every poor Italian does who is doomed to the struggle and semi-starvation of life in our grey metropolis. ”

“ I wondered what Wyman had discovered regarding the disappearance of the Earl of Glenelg and his connection with The Closed Book. Those strange words of the terrified, white-faced girl, his daughter, still rang in my ears—her face still haunted me. Student of human character that I was, I had never seen terror and despair in a woman’s face before. But one is a student always.
Noyes, too, had continued a careful watch upon the house in Harpur Street, where, I had no doubt, the book had been regained by some professional thief. ”

“ As I sat in the swift, open cab that took me back along the sea-road to Antignano, the crimson sun was setting, and the gaily dressed Italian crowd was promenading under the ilexes and acacias beside the Mediterranean. Leghorn is a fashionable bathing-place during July and August, and from the hour when the sun sinks behind Gorgona until far into the night no fairer prospect than the Viale Regina Margherita, as the beautiful promenade is called, with its open-air cafés and big bathing establishments, can be found in the south of Europe. ”

“ For a long time I thought over her words, until at last becoming convinced that being privy to those foul poison-plots wherein death was dealt secretly to every enemy, I was also an assassin and accursed. Wherefore, after much reason, I resolved to hide mi lady’s treasure and enter as a novice the order of Saint Benedict at their great abbey of Croylande in Lincolnshire, hoping that the rigours of a monastic life would open up to me the glories and comforts of religion, of the which I stood sorely in need. ”

“ I am a collector. When you come to Leghorn I hope you will call and look through my treasures.”
“Treasures?” he echoed. “That is no treasure—it is a curse, rather.”
“A curse! How can a splendid old book be a curse in the hands of a palaeographical enthusiast like myself?”
“I am a man of my word,” he said in a low, distinct tone. “I tell you, my dear signore, that your enthusiasm has led you away. You should not have purchased your so-called treasure. ”

“ But through it all—indeed, through all the day—thoughts of Judith Gordon, that beautiful yet tragic figure that had stood beside me on that cliff beside the summer sea, haunted me continually.
Sitting there, impatiently awaiting Walter’s return, I reflected upon her attitude towards me, and saw that she held me more in terror than in abhorrence.
You may dub me a fool for this piece of folly of the heart. Nevertheless, I tell you that this was no mere idle fancy based upon a sudden admiration, but a deep and genuine attraction, such as men experience only once in their lives. ”

“ The low-lying island upon which we found ourselves was certainly a dismal, out-of-the-world place, covered by rank grass and nettles, and yellow with St. John’s wort. Ruined walls were scattered around the castle of Threave itself, a square, roofless tower, which in the bleakness of its gaunt and terrible majesty suggested the idea of an armed skeleton, in the facial apertures of which lay the darkness of death and decay. ”

“ I answered, and having released her hand she turned from me with a sad smile of farewell, and with her collie bounding by her side made her way over the brow of the hill along the straight white road, while I, after watching until she had disappeared from view, turned and walked in the opposite direction.
Anything like mystery, anything withheld or withdrawn from our notice, seizes on our fancy by awakening our curiosity. Then we are won more by what we half-perceive and half-create than by what is openly expressed and freely bestowed. ”

“ I threw myself down on the grass of the cliff-top and thought it all out. Through seven long years I had led that life of utter loneliness, returning to London only for a fortnight or so each year, and then sadly leaving Charing Cross again for another twelve months of exile. I had my work, the writing of romance, to absorb my attention, it was true; but the writer of novels must live in congenial surroundings, otherwise the influence of a solitary life must show in his work. ”

“ The old windmill, with broken sails and roofless outbuildings, stood forth, the most prominent object in that flat, unbroken landscape, without hedgerow, a pitiful relic of the days when it paid to grind corn, before the advent of steam machinery; while clustered on the north side of the abbey were rows of old-fashioned cottages, mostly built of the stones of the monks’ houses thrown down by Cromwell. The quiet old village of Crowland is still far from the railway, and modern progress has therefore been slow in reaching it. ”

“ One day in April, when I passed across the tryangular bridge at Croylande towardes the Abbeye, having been to the priory of Castor to visit the beadsman Willyam Petre, a monk, my friend named Malcolm Maxwell, brought unto me a travel-stained messenger from Ferrara, who tolde to me the death of my lady Lucrezia, and gave unto me a letter written to me an hour before she died. She urged me to continue my lyfe of religion and peace with God, and sente me as her dying wish that her pryceless jewels should remain concealed because a curse rested upon them. ”