The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias. Le Queux William

I came to you; but of late it has been different. I’ve continually threatened to tell you when I’ve found them attempting to cheat. They don’t like to be thought thieves by an Englishman, signore.”

      (A section of five lines missing, page 52.)

      Faltered the white-haired old man. “Ah, signore, you don’t know – indeed you don’t. You have always been so good to me that somehow – well, to tell the truth, I’ve served you as though you were my own son. Could you not take me with you to England?”

      “Impossible!” I said. “You don’t know English, in the first place; besides, you have your family here. You’ll be far better off in Leghorn than in England, with its grey skies and damp climate. You, a Tuscan, couldn’t stand it a month.”

      “But Beppo Martini, from the Hotel Campari, went to London, and now he’s one of the head-waiters at the Hotel Carlton – a splendid post, they say,” urged Nello.

      “I know. But he was younger, and he’d been in Paris years before,” I answered decisively. “I regret, Nello, but to take you to England is utterly impossible. When I am gone, however, I hope to hear of you often through the signor console.”

      “But you do not know,” he urged. “You can’t know. All I can tell you is that when we part you will be in peril. While I am at your side nothing can happen. If you discharge me, then I fear for your safety.”

      I laughed at him, deeming his words but a blundering attempt to compel me to keep him. Italians are experts in threats and insinuations of evil.

      “Well, Nello, I haven’t any fear, I assure you,” I replied. “You’ve been a most excellent servant to me, and I much regret that we should be compelled to part; but as for evil falling upon me during your absence, I must say frankly that I don’t anticipate anything of the kind.”

      “But will not the signor padrone be warned?”

      “Warned of what?” I cried, for everyone seemed to have some warning in his mouth for me. “Of what I have told you?”

      “You want to go to England as my personal body-servant and guardian – eh?”

      “I do,” replied the old man gravely.

      “And because of that you’ve hit upon an exceedingly clever ruse by which to induce me to let you have your way,” I laughed. “No, once for all, Nello, you cannot go with me.”

      He stood in silence for a few minutes, as still as though he were turned to stone.

      Tears stood in the eyes of the affectionate old servitor. A lump had arisen in his throat, and I saw that with difficulty he swallowed it.

      “You do not know my fears, signor padrone,” he said huskily. “It is for your own sake that I ask you to keep me as your servant – for the sake of your own future. If, however, you have decided, so it must be. Nello will leave you, signore; but he will not cease to be your humble and devoted servant.”

      Then he turned slowly, and went out, closing the doors after him.

      I felt sorry that I had jeered at him, for I had not known how deeply he was attached to me. Still, to take a man of his age to England would be an utter folly, and I could not help feeling that the warning he had uttered was a false one, spoken with a motive.

      At last I rose, and, ascending to the study, where the windows were still closed against the heat and sun-glare from the sea, took forth my treasured Arnoldus, and seated myself at my writing-table with the determination of deciphering at least some of that record written at the end.

      The first line only of the uneven scrawl was in Latin, as I have already given, and for a long time I puzzled over the next, so sprawling and faded was it; but at length I discovered to my utter surprise and satisfaction that the rest was not in Latin, but in the early sixteenth-century English.

      Then slowly and with infinite pains I gradually commenced to transcribe the mysterious record, the opening of which read as follows:

      “For soe much as the unskilfull or the ungodly cannot of themselves conceyve the use of thys booke, I have thought it good to note unto them what fruite and comoditie they maye tayke thereof in soe plane forme of manner as I can devise.

      “Fyrst, therefore, they maye here lerne who and what manner of man I am. Next, they maye knowe of mi birthe and station, of mi lyfe at the Courte of mi Lorde Don Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of Persaro, of mi confydences wyth mi ladie Lucrezia, of my dealynges with the greate Lorde Alexandra P.P. VI., the terryble Pontiff, of mi adventures among the fayre ladyes of Pesaro and Rome, and of dyvers strange thynges in Yngolande.”

      Written in rather difficult sixteenth-century English, which I have modernised somewhat, it continued:

      “Then may they further mark the deep significance of this my secret record, and of how with speed I made amends for my slowness beforetime. Lastly have I here noted at the request of certain that by their own labour and without instruction or help they cannot attain the knowledge of The Secret Hidden. The studious man, with small pains, by help of this book, may gather unto himself such good furniture of knowledge as shall marvellously enrich the commonplace.

      “Do you, my reader, think of death? The very thoughts disturb one’s reason; and though man may have many excellent qualities, yet he may have the weakness of not commanding his sentiments. Nothing is worse for man’s health than to be in fear of death. Some are so wise as neither to hate nor fear it; but for my part I have an aversion to it, for it is a rash, inconsiderate thing that always cometh before it is looked for; always cometh unseasonable, parteth friends, ruineth beauty, jeereth at youth, and draweth a dark veil over the pleasures of life. Yet this dreadful evil is but the evil of a moment, and that which we cannot by any means avoid; and it is that which makes it so terrible for me, sinner that I am; for were it certain, hope might diminish some part of the fear; but when I think I must die, and that I may die every moment, and that too in a thousand different ways, I am in such a fright the which you cannot imagine. I see dangers where perchance there never were any. I am persuaded ’tis happy to be somewhat dull of mind in this case; and yet the best way to cure the pensiveness of the thoughts of death is to think or it as little as possible.

      “Let him that learneth this my secret, and surviveth, seek and so gain his just reward. But if thou, my reader, hath terror of the grave seek not to learn the contents of this closed book. Tempt not the hidden power that lieth therein, but rather let the clasp remain fastened and the secret ever concealed from thy knowledge and understanding.

      “I, Godfrey Lovel, one time of the Abbey of Croylande, brother of the Order of the Blessed Saint Benedict, warneth thee to stay thy curiosity, if thou fearest death as I do fear it.

      “TO SEEK FURTHER IS AT THINE OWN PERIL.”

      Chapter Seven

      Forbidden Folios

      The words of warning inscribed there in large, uneven letters, shaky in places as though penned by an aged hand, stood out from the time-stained vellum page like capitals of fire.

      It really seemed absurd to heed them, and yet on every side I seemed to be warned by those whom I believed to be in ignorance that any endeavour to open the Closed Book would result in disaster. Surely the manner in which the precious volume had come into my possession was romantic enough, yet why should even the faithful old Nello be apprehensive of impending evil? There was something uncanny about the whole affair – something decidedly unsatisfactory.

      Italy is a land of superstition, shared alike by count and contadino, hence I at first put it down to some vague belief in the evil eye, of which I was in ignorance. During my residence in Tuscany I had often been surprised by the many popular beliefs and terrors. Our true Tuscan sees an omen in everything, and an exhortation to the Virgin or to good Sant’ Antonio is ever upon his lips, while his first and last fingers are ever outstretched when he sees a gobba, or female hunchback – the harbinger of every evil.

      Whether the warnings uttered to me were the outcome of mere superstition, or whether part of one of those ingenious conspiracies which he who lives among the suave Italians so often has to thwart,