“I told you that they were all impossible,” growled the dealer. “So far we are quite at sea. To-morrow, perhaps–” he sighed wearily.
“To-morrow perhaps we shall have better luck,” I said cheerfully. “It is always darkest before the dawn.”
“Pas de banalités. I am not a Sunday-school scholar to be preached at. Come, let’s to dinner.”
CHAPTER XVII
Three weeks passed before we made any further progress. A clue, but always an imaginary clue, would prick us into feverish activity, which invariably led us nowhere.
But toward the end of the third week of our search, St. Hilary came to my rooms one afternoon, triumphant. He had actually made a discovery. And this discovery proved, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, not only that the clock had a story to tell, not only that the twelve hours actually did constitute twelve links of a chain, but that somewhere, in the background of each hour, there was some mark corresponding to a like mark in some part of Venice.
“It is only a little clue,” he said with affected modesty, “a very little one. But who knows that it may not be the wedge that shall pry open our treasure-box?”
“Produce this wedge by all means,” I said skeptically.
“This morning, about half past ten, I found myself in the Campo San Salvatore–you know it, the little square with the house of the gaily painted balcony and the roses on the north side. At the left of the square, going toward San Marco, perhaps you remember, there is a boys’ school. You may have observed a respectable old servant who walks solemnly up to the big bell on the left of the door, leading a little boy by the hand. He always rings the bell at eight o’clock in the morning. When the door is opened he hands the school-books to his charge, shakes his finger at him, and toddles off to the seller of sweetened water at the corner for a drink.”
“Has this respectable old man anything to do with your precious discovery?” I asked impatiently.