"Then it is certain that in your Italian wanderings you did not go to Prato.These groups of children dancing and blowing horns are very cleverly copied from Donatello's famous pulpit in the duomo.The design is carried on from the chairs to the footboard of the bed; but in their midst upon the footboard is let in this oval, easel-picture, painted on wood.It is faded, and the garlands have withered in so many hundred years, as well they might; but I can feel the dead color quite well, and I also know who painted it.""Is it possible, signor - this faint ghost of a picture?""There exists no doubt at all.You see a little Pinturicchio.Note the gay bands of variegated patterns, the arabesques and fruits.Their hues have vanished, but their forms and certain mannerisms of the master are unmistakable.These dainty decorations were the sign manual of such quattrocento painters as Gozzoli and Pinturicchio; and to these men he, for whom these works of art were created, assigned the painting and adornment of the Vatican.We will come to him directly.It was for Michelangelo to make the creations of these artists mere colored bubbles and froth, when seen against the immensity and intellectual grandeur of his future masterpieces in the Sistine.But that was afterwards.We are concerned with the Pope for whom these chairs and this bed were made.
Yes, a Pope, my friends - no less a personage than Alexander VI.!"He waited, like a skilled actor, for the tremendous sensation he expected and deserved.But it did not come.Unhappily for Signor Mannetti's great moment, his words conveyed no particular impression to anybody.
Sir Walter asked politely:
"And was he a good, or a bad Pope? I fear many of those gentlemen had little to their credit."But the signor felt the failure of his great climax.At first he regretted it, and a wave of annoyance, even contempt, passed unseen through his mind; then he was glad that the secret should be hidden for another four- and-twenty hours, to gain immensely in dramatic sensation by delay.Already he was planning the future, and designing wonderful histrionics.He could not be positive that he was right; though now the old man felt very little doubt.
He did not answer Sir Walter's question, but asked one himself.
"The detectives examined this apartment with meticulous care, you say?""They did indeed."
"And yet what can care and zeal do; what can the most conscientious student achieve if his activities are confounded by ignorance? The amazing thing to me is that nobody should have had the necessary information to lead them at least in the right direction.And yet I run on too fast.After all, who shall be blamed, for it is, of course, the Grey Room and nothing but the Grey Room we are concerned with.Am I right? The Grey Room has the evil fame?""Certainly it has."
"And yet a little knowledge of a few peculiar facts - a pinch of history- yet, once again, who shall be blamed?Who can be fairly asked to possess that pinch of history which means so much in this room?""How could history have helped us, signor?" asked Henry Lennox.
"I shall tell you.But history is always helpful.There is history everywhere around us - not only here, but in every other department of this noble house.Take these chairs.By the accident of training, I readin them a whole chapter of the beginnings of the Renaissance; to you they are only old furniture.You thought them Spanish because they were bought in Spain - at Valencia, as a matter of fact.You did not know that, Sir Walter; but your grandfather purchased them there - to the despair and envy of another collector.Yes, these chairs have speaking faces to me, just as the ceiling over them has a speaking face also.It, too, is copied.History, in fact, breathes its very essence in this home.If I knew more history than I do, then other beautiful things would talk to me as freely as these chairs - and as freely as the trophies of the chase and the tiger skins below no doubt talk to Sir Walter.But are we not all historical - men, women, even children? To exist is to take your place in history, though, as in my case, the fact will not be recorded save in the 'Chronicles' of the everlasting.Yes, I am ancient history now, and go far back, before Italy was a united kingdom.Much entertainng information will be lost for ever when I die.Believe me, while the new generation is crying forth the new knowledge and glorying in its genius, we of the old guard are sinking into our graves and taking the old knowledge with us.Yet they only rediscover for themselves what we know.Human life is the snake with its tail in its mouth - Nietzsche's eternal recurrenceand the commonplaces of our forefathers are echoed on the lips of our children as great discoveries."Henry Lennox ventured to bring him back to the point.
"What knowledge - what particular branch of information should a man possess, signor, to find out what you have found?""Merely an adornment, my young friend, a side branch of withered learning, not cultivated, I fear, by your Scotland Yard.Yet I have known country gentlemen to be skilled in it.The practice of heraldry.I marked your arms on your Italian gates.I must look at those gates again- they are not very good, I fear.But the arms - a chevron between three lions - a fine coat, yet probably not so ancient as the gates.""It was such a thing as bothered me in Florence," said Sir Walter."I'd seen it before somewhere, but where I know not - a bull's head of gold on a red field."Signor Mannetti started and laughed.
"Ha -ha! We will come to the golden bull presently, Sir Walter.You shall meet him I promise you!"Then he broke off and patted his forehead.
