The Florentine Dagger: A Novel for Amateur Detectives

A Novel for Amateur Detectives
BY BEN HECHT
BONI AND LIVERIGHT Publishers New York
Copyright, 1923, by Boni and Liveright, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO JOSEPHINE DITRICHSTEIN, who graciously promised to read my next book, providing, of course, it was a mystery story
The five illustrations contained in the following pages, and the jacket design, are the work of the new phenomenal black and white artist, Wallace Smith. In making the drawings Mr. Smith chose to illustrate the spirit of the text rather than its letter. The result is this series of Renaissance pictures whose dark opulence curiously interprets the moods of the story’s hero, Prince Julien de Medici—of Broadway.
Containing a nervous cavalier with frightened eyes—Introducing a mysterious and puritanical satyr—And discussing the tired ghosts that haunted the heart of Julien De Medici.
In the firelight the face of Julien De Medici appeared like a gray and scarlet mask of ennui. Oblivious of the ornamental room with its pattern of books, statues and tapestries, he sat stiffly in the carved wooden chair and stared at the burning logs. He was waiting for his host, Victor Ballau.
Except for the crackling of the burning wood, the room was still. Cowled shadows reared witch-like shapes across the walls and ceiling.
It was night outside. Wind quarreled with the stone buildings. Removing his eyes reluctantly from the burning logs, De Medici glanced at the darkness of the empty room. He studied the shadows with frightened eyes.
He was a curious man of thirty. An aristocratic ugliness marked his face. The long, thin nose, the high cheek-bones, the wide, inanimate mouth and the green-tinted skin gave him a lithographic rather than human air. His black hair was cut in a straight line across his forehead. He wore it unparted in such a manner that it made an almost square frame for the elongated rigidity of his face.