The little man threw himself back in my armchair, a smirk of satisfaction on his wizened face. There was something of the actor about St. Hilary; he loved an appreciative audience, and he was determined to make the most of the present one.

83

CHAPTER VIII

“Did you see the London Times of–let me see–I believe it was the day before yesterday?” asked St. Hilary presently.

I shook my head. The question was apparently quite irrelevant, but I was accustomed to his sudden and startling changes of front in the discussion of any question.

“There was a remarkable robbery mentioned in that issue. A Bond Street jeweler appealed to his creditors for an extension of time in which to pay his debts. When he was denied that, he warned them that he should on a certain day go into bankruptcy. The night before he was to declare himself a bankrupt, however, when he was in his shop very late at night, puzzling out his accounts, he was attacked by thieves, and after being bound and gagged, his safe was blown open and rifled.”

“A very ordinary robbery,” I commented.

“Yes. But the thief was his confidential clerk.”

“Who else should know so well the combination of the safe?” I asked indifferently.

84“If you would only be a little more patient, Hume, you would not esteem my words so lightly. There is generally some intention behind them. As I was saying, he was robbed by his own clerk, but the extraordinary feature of the case is that the confidential clerk robbed the master with the master’s consent and at his instigation. Substitute the son for the clerk, and you have a case of history repeating itself.”

84

“Then the Doge was right. Da Sestos was the thief?”

“Consider for a moment the character of this Messer Giovanni. He is an artist, but an artist eccentric to the verge of madness. Sanudo again and again refers to it. Granting, then, that he is mad, in what form will this madness manifest itself? Essentially in the very traits and qualities that make up the artistic temperament. These traits will be developed abnormally. They will be pushed just over the narrow borderland. How would you define the artistic temperament, Hume?”

“Answering at random, I suppose the distinguishing traits of Giovanni’s 

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