There were the numbers again; six cubits and a span.
I could no longer doubt. And now, having wrested so much of the madman’s secret, having surprised from him the key, I should, I felt confident, solve the rest. I was to cut the last thread that bound this secret to the grave.
Suddenly I became conscious of faces turned frowningly in my direction. In my excitement I had, I suppose, rustled the leaves. It was an unusual sight to see a man of discretion frantically turning over the leaves of his Bible during a sermon.
To sit through the sermon was impossible. I must get a breath of fresh air. I would wait for Jacqueline outside.
I walked to the quay of the Grand Canal. I scanned the sweep of the palaces, from the Salute to the Rialto Bridge. To which of them would these new clues lead?
I walked back to the church. The sermon was droning slumberously on. I wandered restlessly down the Calle San Rio. I found myself at the steamboat landing. The little steamer was discharging its quota of passengers. I leaped aboard. My desire to look on the photographs was intense. I wished to verify the other scenes. I wished to confound St. Hilary with my discovery.
Not until the steamer was half-way across the Giudecca did I remember, with a shock of dismay, my appointment with Jacqueline.
I persuaded myself that I had time to look at the photographs just once; I could hurriedly recount my wonderful discovery to St. Hilary; I could be rowed across to the Molo in three minutes, and be at the church in another ten. If I failed Jacqueline, she would forgive me when she knew the extraordinary circumstances under which I had deserted her. Had she not regretted, with a hint of reproach in her words that still rankled, that my search for the casket had been so fruitless of results? And had she not said that the duke was hunting for it without a moment’s rest? Then there was no time to be lost.
I did fail Jacqueline. St. Hilary was not in my rooms, and I waited for him. The temptation to triumph over him proved too sweet. I was not the first man to risk his precious birthright of love for a mess of pottage.