He seated himself carelessly on the table, swinging one leg. He picked up an illustrated weekly.
“Are you interested in horses? Here are some capital snap-shots of good riding during the manœuvers at Asti.”
I crossed the room and looked over his shoulder. When we had exhausted the magazines he bethought him of the pictures hanging on the wall. He lifted the muslin coverings and showed them to me, one by one, expatiating on their beauties. Evidently he was trying to kill time. Unconsciously I glanced at the clock, a modern timepiece about three feet high, standing on the mantel. I had forgotten that it had stopped. The hands, I noticed, stood at half-past six.
The duke now took up his position at the window, while I stood with my back to the mantel. It just reached my shoulder. For the first time it occurred to me that he had wished to get me away from the window. He wished the post of observation for himself. I wondered if it were worth while for me to join him.
For perhaps thirty seconds there was silence between us. I say thirty seconds, and I measured that interval by thirty ticks. At first I heard them listlessly. They were faint, muffled, and strangely slow. Then I remembered with a start that the clock had stopped. It was impossible for them to come from the watch in my pocket. They sounded close to my ears, and my ears were not two inches away from the clock that had stopped.
For a moment the strange phenomenon bewildered me. Then I understood. The casket was inside the clock; and the mechanism that would release the cover in twelve hours had been set going.
As if the duke were the clairvoyant he had mockingly pretended to be, he turned sharply on his heel. I was gazing up at the ceiling.
“Luigi is a long time,” he muttered. “It is possible that the thieves who broke into my rooms some months ago stole it after all.”
“Thieves!”
“Yes, my friend, thieves. But I am taking precautions for my safety in the future.” He laughed shortly, and looked out of the window again.