The Title Market Part 17

CHAPTER XV

AN OPPOSITION BOOTH IS SET UP IN THE MARKET PLACE

While Sansevero and Giovanni were in their imaginations refurbis.h.i.+ng their escutcheon, two other men, with the opposite intent, stood on the front steps of the agency of "Thomas Cook and Sons." One was proclaimed by the regulation "Cook's" badge on his cap to be a guide; the other, by his military cloak, might have been recognized as an official of the Italian government. Both had shown covert interest in the Princess Sansevero, who, looking particularly lovely in her magnificent set of sables, had crossed the sidewalk with the light, buoyant carriage characteristic of her.

"There, you may see for yourself if it is I who speak the truth." This was said by the guide.

The official looked at him askance as he drew his bushy brows together and pulled at his beard. "I confess it looks serious--and strongly favors your supposition."

"But what else? It is as plain as the nose on your face, I should say!

At Torre Sansevero they have been living on next to nothing--my cousin is cook, and I know that every _soldo_ is counted. They come to Rome and spend their savings. You will say they have done that for years; but tell me this, should their savings in this year treble the savings of other years?"

Triumphantly he looked at his companion and, throwing back his head, put his hands on his hips. Then, with a return to his confidential manner, he laid his finger against his nose. "I know it for a fact," he continued--"Luigi heard it at the key-hole--that their excellencies contemplated staying at Torre Sansevero all this winter! Her excellency had the look--Maria, the maid, told the servants that much--that her excellency always has when _signore_, the prince, has cut the strings and left the purse empty."

"Furthermore?" The official twirled his mustache with an air of incredulity.

"Furthermore, the great Raphael disappears! Her excellency's renovation story was a little weak for my digestion, and, unless my eyes played me false, she was well frightened. I'll take my oath she was at a loss what to answer."

"You say you taxed her with it?"

"As I told you. She answered that the picture was being renovated. An answer for an idiot--the picture is one of the best canvases extant; in perfect repair."

"Did you tell her that?"

"Partially. I am sure she saw my suspicion."

"I should doubt her carrying out the sale after that. There is where your story fails."

"Ah, but it had already gone! It was perhaps by then in the house of a foreign millionaire. No, no, my story hangs together: The great picture disappears! A month later--time exactly for its arrival in America and the payment for it to be sent over here--her excellency of no money comes out in such a motor-car as that! And sables! I have an eye for furs. My father was in the business. The value of those she has on runs easily into the seventy or eighty thousand _lire_. Here she comes now, out of the banker's where American money is most often paid! Do you want better evidence?"

He had been punctuating all he said with his fingers, and now, with a final snap of arms and a shrug of shoulders, he looked up in keen triumph at his companion.

The other--slower and less excited than the narrator (probably because he was not the discoverer of the plot)--nevertheless showed lively interest. "It is very grave," he admitted at last. "But the Sansevero family is ill.u.s.trious. We may not proceed against them without due consideration. I shall report the case to the chief of our secret service, and the prince must be----"

A tall, athletic young man who had been changing some foreign gold into Italian, came into the open doorway of the office. A carriage, pa.s.sing at that moment close to the curb, had prevented the two men from hearing the stranger's footfall, and as the latter stood on the top step, searching in his pocket for matches, he happened to catch the name "Sansevero." At once his attention was arrested, but as the conversation was carried on in an undertone, he caught only vague, detached words.

Still, he was sure that he had heard "Raphael" after the name, "Sansevero," "disappearance," and then something like "secret service."

But his presence evidently had become known, for as he pa.s.sed on out into the street the two in blue coats were talking loudly about the excursion to Tivoli and the scenery _en route_.

Walking out into the middle of the square where the cabs stand, he jumped into the first one, but he looked cautiously back toward the men in front of Cook's, before telling the driver to take him to the Palazzo Sansevero.

Here the _portiere_ in his morning clothes, very different from the gorgeous apparel of afternoon, was sweeping out the courtyard. Holding his broom handle with exactly the same dignity with which, later in the day, he would hold his mace, he informed the stranger that his excellency the prince was not at home--neither was her excellency the princess. Upon being asked whether Miss Randolph were perhaps at home, he altogether forgot his imperturbability. That a _signore_ should send in his card to a _signorina_ was so far outside the range of his experience that the man stood with his mouth open, unable even to think what answer to give. As though he were a somnambulist, the man took the card and slowly read the name on its face; then he looked the stranger over from head to foot, read the name a second time, and finally entered the palace.

The young man watched his retreating figure, and then, throwing back his head, laughed long and heartily. After which he fell to studying the details of the courtyard. He noted with keen interest the deep ruts worn in the solid stone paving under the ma.s.sive arches of the gateways, and glanced up at the bas-reliefs between the windows. At the sound of footsteps he turned and encountered Nina's maid, Celeste.

Mademoiselle had sent her to bid him mount to the _salon_. Through the green baize doors--it was the shorter way--and then, if monsieur would go straight on to the very last of the rooms-- His striding pace made Celeste fairly trot along at his heels. He went through room after room.

Was there no end to them? At last Nina's slight, girlish figure was seen silhouetted against a broad window at the end--the light at her back hazing the gold of her hair, like a nimbus, about her face.

She ran toward him, both hands out. "Jack! Dear Jack! Is it you, really, or am I dreaming? When did you come? Oh, I _am_ so glad to see you; but what a surprise! Why did you not send word?"

For a moment a light leaped into Derby's eyes. It seemed as though Nina was looking at him exactly as he, in his day dreams, had seen her. But his prudence steadied his first impulse, and he put down her gladness as merely the joy of a person who, far from home, sees suddenly a familiar face in the midst of strangers; and they sat on the sofa just as they had sat on the railing of the veranda in the country, ever since they were children.

In Derby's account of himself, Nina could easily read the confidence that had led her father to send him to Italy. But their talk had gone little further than the barest outline of his mission when the prince and princess returned. At the sight of Nina sitting alone with a man, the princess came forward quickly with the question, "My child, what does this mean?" as plainly asked in her eyes as it could have been by spoken words. But at Nina's "John Derby, Aunt Eleanor!" the princess put out her hand with all the grace in the world, and as she returned the straight, frank look of his blue eyes, her whole expression became youthful, as if reflecting some pleasant memory of her girlhood.

"I knew your uncle very, very well!" She smiled entrancingly. It was a smile that irresistibly attracted to her all who ever saw it. "You are like him." Then she added softly, dreamingly, as though half speaking to herself, "You remind me of so many things--at home!"

The next minute she had turned to present Derby to her husband, and the conversation became general. But, finally, in a pause, Nina said, "Jack, tell Uncle Sandro what father sent you over to do. Or is it a secret?"

Derby looked toward Sansevero as though measuring the man. "It is no great secret--but I would rather it was not spoken of yet."

"My ears are deaf, and my tongue is dumb." Sansevero put his hand over his ear, his mouth, and finally his heart.

"I have come over to buy, or to lease--at all events, to work--sulphur mines."

As though an electric current had been turned on, Sansevero sat up straight, and his levity vanished. "To work sulphur mines! Will you tell me more? I have a particular reason for wanting to know."

Derby answered willingly. "I can give you a general idea. I was forced into inventing a new method of mining on account of the quicksands, which are found all through our mines at home. Taking a suggestion from the oil wells, I bored just such a well down into the sulphur beds.

Ordinarily the sulphur is brought up in powder or rock form, and refined in vats on the surface, so that not only do the miners have to go down into the sulphurous heat, but the caldrons in which the sulphur is refined give out gases that are unendurable to human throats and lungs.

In our mines, the sulphur is now refined sixty or a hundred feet below the surface of the ground, and pours out in an already purified state, at the top of the well."

Sansevero looked incredulous. "But sulphur is almost impossible to liquefy. Unlike metals, it congeals again when it has been heated beyond the proper temperature. Also it corrodes any metal it touches, so that a pipe would be eaten away immediately."

"To get over those difficulties is exactly what I am trying to do by my new process," Derby answered. "The sulphur is melted by hot water sent down the pipes, followed by sand, and then sawdust--the sand to carry the heat to the cooler edges, and the wet sawdust to check the heat at the center."

Even the princess drew nearer and laid her hand on her husband's arm as Derby made his explanation. Sansevero trembled with excitement. "But according to that," he cried, turning to his wife; "our mine would be practicable!" Then to Derby: "I ought to explain to you that we have a sulphur mine in Sicily, near Vencata. So far as I know, the sulphur does, as you say, lie in a bed some twenty meters down. Above it are rock and alluvial soil. The volcanic neighborhood makes the temperature below ground higher than can be borne, yet we know that the sulphur deposit is immense."

"Give me more details. From what you say, it sounds as though this mine of yours might be exactly what we are looking for. Does Mr. Randolph know of it, or that you are the owner?"

"No; no one knows it excepting one small group of sulphur owners. I unwisely went into it on the advice of--some one who is very good at all these things; yet the best are liable to mistake. Other mines in the neighborhood, owned by friends of mine, have brought in a fortune. Ours has, so far, been a failure."

The talk lasted until luncheon was served. Giovanni put in an appearance, and Derby was pressed to stay. As di Valdo and the American met, there was a barely perceptible coldness under the Italian's good manners, while Derby's greeting showed a momentary curiosity. Two more sharply contrasted beings could hardly have been brought together. But gradually Giovanni also became interested in the mining plans, and, as the reason for the American's coming to Europe very evidently was business and not the pursuit of the heiress, Giovanni's affability became genuine.

The end of the matter was that Derby agreed to take up the Sansevero mine, commonly known as the "Little Devil"; to be worked on a "royalty"

basis. Derby, representing his company, was to pay all expenses, take all responsibility, and to return to Sansevero a percentage of the market price on every ton of sulphur taken out of it.

Furthermore, Sansevero insisted upon giving him a letter to the Archbishop of Vencata, who lived about eight hours on muleback from the mining settlement. The Sicilians, he declared, were a dangerous people for strangers who tried to interfere in their established order of things.

"So then I am likely to have adventures! It sounds exciting!" The American laughed light-heartedly at the sport of it. However, he accepted the letter to the archbishop.

CHAPTER XVI

A MENACE