The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias

She looked me straight in the face as though hesitating whether she dared speak the truth. Next instant, however, her natural caution asserted itself, and, with tactful ingenuity, she turned the conversation into a different channel. She seemed uneasy, and eager to escape from my cross-examination; while I, on my part, became determined to obtain from her the truth and to convince her of my good intentions.

I was in a difficulty, because to reveal my connection with The Closed Book might upset all my plans. For aught I knew, she might inform the man Selby, who, gaining knowledge of my presence in England, would suspect that the precious volume had come again into my possession. Therefore I was compelled to retain my secret, and by so doing was, of course, unable to convince her of my intention to be her friend.

Mine was a painful position – just as painful as hers. For some reason quite unaccountable she held me in terror, and now that dusk was darkening to night, was in haste to return to Saxlingham, about three miles distant. It was apparent that my admission of having watched her and her father in Harpur Street had aroused her suspicion of me, a suspicion which no amount of argument or assertion would remove.

She was disinclined to discuss the matter further; and, after some desultory conversation regarding the beauties of Norfolk, she called her dog Rover, preparatory to taking leave of me.

“You must excuse me, Mr Kennedy,” she said, with a smile, the first I had seen on that sad, sweet face. “But it is growing late, and it will be dark before I get back.”

“May I not walk with you half the distance?” I urged.

“No,” she responded. “It would be taking you right out of your way for Sheringham. I have known the roads about here ever since I was a child, and therefore have no fear.”

“Well,” I said, putting forth my hand and lifting my hat to her, “I can only hope, Lady Judith, that when next we meet you will have learned that, instead of being your enemy, I am your friend.”

She placed her hand in mine rather timidly, and I held it there while she replied, with a sigh, “Ah, if I could only believe that you speak the truth!”

“It is the truth!” I cried, still holding her tiny hand in my grip. “You are in distress, and although you decline to allow me to assist you, I will show you that I have not lied to you tonight. Recollect, Lady Judith,” I went on fervently, for I saw that some nameless terror had driven her to despair, “recollect that I am your friend, ready to render you any assistance or perform any service at any moment; only, on your part, I want you to give me a promise.”

“And what is that?” she faltered.

“That you will tell no one that you met me. Remember that, although you are not aware of it, your enemies are mine.”

For a moment she was silent, with eyes downcast; then she answered in a low voice, “Very well, Mr Kennedy. If you wish it, I will say nothing. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” 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. But this feeling is part of our life; when time and years have chilled us, when we can no longer afford to send our souls abroad, nor from our own superfluity of life and sensibility spare the materials out of which we build a shrine for our idol, then do we seek, we ask, we thirst, for that warmth of frank, confiding tenderness which revives in us the withered affections and feelings buried, but not dead. Then the excess of love is welcome, not repelled; it is gracious to us as the sun and dew to the seared and riven trunk with its few green leaves.

Like every other man I had had my own affairs of the heart. I had loved unwisely more than once, but the sweetness, sensibility, magnanimity, and fortitude of the unhappy Judith’s character appealed to me in all the freshness and perfection of what a true woman should be.

I cared nothing for the repugnance she felt towards myself, because I knew that it must be the outcome of some vile calumny or some vague suspicion.

As I passed back along the narrow path over the cliffs, my face set towards the gathering night, I calmly examined my life, and saw now that seven years had gone since the great domestic blow had fallen upon me and caused me to ramble aimlessly across the Continent; that I still stood yet in the morning of life, and that it was not too late to win the glorious prize I had asked of life – love incarnate in sovereign beauty, endowed with all nobility and fervour and tenderness and truth.

In any case, whether she became mine or not, I loved her with my whole heart; and to know that I could love again, in spite of all the torture of the past, was in itself both comfort and delight.

Chapter Twenty

Walter Wyman Rejoins me

That night I slept little, my mind being full of thoughts of the evening’s adventure. Before my eyes I had constantly that pale, tragic face, just as, previously, visions of the countenance of the woman I had seen in the prior’s dim study in Florence seemed ever before me. Was it by intuition that I knew that these two women were destined to influence my life to a far greater degree than any woman had done before? I think it must have been; for while I loved the one, I held the other in a constant, indefinable terror. Why, I know not until this day – not even now that I am sitting here calmly chronicling all that occurred to me in those wild days of ardent love, reckless adventure, and impenetrable mystery.

At noon Walter Wyman unexpectedly walked into my room with a cheery greeting, and, throwing himself down upon the couch in the window that looked over the sea, exclaimed, “Well, old chap, what does this extraordinary book contain, after all?”

I took the transcript from the place where I had hidden it, and, seating myself on the edge of the table, read it through to him.

“Oh, hang it!” he exclaimed excitedly, when I had finished, “then we may, if we are persevering and careful, actually discover this great treasure!”

“Exactly,” I answered. “My suggestion is that we lose no time in making preliminary observations at the two spots mentioned by the man who hid it from his enemies.”

“And supposing we found it, would it benefit us, having in view the law of treasure-trove?” was Walters very practical inquiry.

“Not very much perhaps,” I admitted. “But we should at least clear up a mystery that has puzzled the world for ages – the actual existence of the Borgia poison and its antidote, besides rescuing Lucrezia Borgia’s emeralds, and at the same time discovering the real motive of the strange conspiracy surrounding the book.”

“I quite agree with that,” exclaimed my friend; “but does it not strike you that we are considerably handicapped by that folio being missing – the very page of all others most important for the success of our search? Besides, this man Selby has, in all probability, read the chronicle, and therefore knows just as much, and probably more, than we do.”

“That I grant you,” I said. “But, nevertheless, I somehow feel that we ought to search both at Crowland, which is within easy reach of this place, and at Threave, in Scotland.” And I explained how I had written to my old friend Fred Fenwicke, asking that we might both be allowed to come up and visit him.

“You certainly haven’t let the grass grow under your feet, old fellow – you never do,” he said, taking a cigarette from the box I handed to him and lighting it. “I think with you that we ought to try Threave, seeing that the plan is evidently of the spot. But we are unable to do anything till the sixth of September, when we ought to be there at three o’clock in the afternoon, according to the directions given.”

“We have still three weeks, then,” I remarked. “In that case we might go over to Crowland first and look around there. In all probability the other plan is meant to indicate where the treasure of the abbey is concealed.”

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, taking the transcript from my hand. “This list of things, the silver altar, gold chalices, and boxes of gems are sufficient to make one’s mouth water – aren’t they?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “We ought, if we act in a circumspect manner and arouse no attention on the part of the villagers, to be able to make a secret search. The one thing to avoid is public interest. The instant anybody suspects what we are after, the whole affair will get into the papers, and not only will our chance of success be gone, but our enemies, whoever they are, will know that The Closed Book is again in our possession.”

“I quite follow you, Allan,” he said with sudden seriousness. “We’ll go to Crowland tonight, if you are agreeable, and set carefully to work in order to see if the plan tallies with any landmark now existing. It’s a pity the old chap who wrote the record didn’t label it, as he did the other.”

“He may have wanted to give the plan but hold back the secret from anyone who casually opened the book,” I suggested. “You see, the volume has evidently been preserved for centuries in the library of the Certosa Monastery at Florence – the house in which the monk Godfrey Lovel died – and, being written in early English, could not, of course, be translated by the Italian monks.”

“I wonder how many people have died through handling those poisoned pages?” my friend observed. The deadliness of that secret Borgia venom appealed to him as it has appealed to the world through ages.

“Ah!” I said, “it is impossible to tell.”

But my mind was on other things, and as soon as the opportunity offered I related to Walter my strange rencontre with Lady Judith Gordon.

“What?” he cried, jumping up from the couch; “you’ve actually seen her and spoken to her?”

“Certainly. She is charming, and I admit, my dear Walter, that I’ve fallen most desperately in love with her.”

“Love! You actually love her?” he demanded.

“Indeed I do. She is the perfect incarnation of what a good, sweet woman should be. Is there any reason why I should not admire her?”

“None that I know of,” he returned; “but I’m afraid of these people and their connection with this mysterious affair. Remember, all we know about them is that they have led very peculiar lives for years. But time will show whether you are wise. Certainly these people appear to have found the secret just as we have – the secret of the existence of a valuable treasure.”

Chapter Twenty One

We Make Preliminary Investigation

“I thought buried treasure existed only in books!” I remarked, recollecting “Treasure Island” and other such romances. “Certainly I never anticipated that I should be actually engaged in a real treasure hunt.”

“Nor did I, until I saw the gravity of the whole thing, and how deeply in earnest are these people.”

“They have no idea that The Closed Book is again in my possession?” I asked.

“None whatever. The volume was stolen from Harpur Street, of course, and they are puzzled to know into whose hands it has fallen. All the chief dealers in manuscripts in London – Quaritch, Maggs, Tregaskis, Dobell, and the others – have been warned that if the Arnoldus is offered them it is stolen property.”