The Stretton Street Affair. William Le Queux

of my own being.

      That subtle odour of pot-pourri had gripped me until I felt faint and inert beneath its perfume, and it often returned to me — but in fancy, of course.

      In the winter sunshine I wandered about the busy, old-world streets of Florence, idling in the cafés, gazing into the many shop-windows of the dealers in faked pictures and faked antiques, while often my wandering footsteps led me into one or other of the “sights” of the city, all of which I had visited before — the National Museum at the Bargello, the Laurenziana Library, with its rows of priceless chained manuscripts, the Chiostro dello Scalzo, where Andrea del Sarto’s wonderful frescoes adorn the walls, or into the Palazzo Vecchio, or the galleries of the Pitti, or the Uffizi. I was merely killing time in the faint hope that the good-natured Robertson might get for me the information which, in the circumstances, I was naturally most eager to obtain.

      In the course of my erratic wanderings through the grand old city, with its host of monuments of a glorious past, I was one morning passing the great marble-built cathedral and noticed a number of people entering. There seemed to be an unusual number of visitors, so having nothing to do I passed through the narrow door into the sombre gloom of the magnificent old place — one of the most noteworthy and most beautiful sacred buildings in the world.

      At first, entering from the bright sunshine of the piazza, I could scarcely see, so dim was the huge interior, but slowly my vision, rather bad since my strange adventure, grew accustomed to the half-darkness, and I saw that upon the high altar there were many long candles burning in their brass sconces and before the high altar three priests in gorgeous vestments were kneeling.

      In the great cavernous place, with its choir beneath the dome, I heard low prayers in Latin. Men and women who passed me bowed and crossed themselves while many knelt.

      The glorious cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, so called from the Lily which figures in the Arms of Florence — hence “the Lily City” — had always an attraction for me, as it has for every visitor to the ancient Tuscan capital. The stained glass of Ghiberti, the wonderful mosaics of Gaddo Gaddi, the frescoes of angels by Santi di Tito, and the beautiful pictures by the great mediæval masters, all are marvellous, and worth crossing the world to see.

      From before the altar a long spiral mist of incense was rising, and about me as I stood in the centre of the enormous interior, many visitors were passing out from the dim religious gloom into the light of the open doorway.

      Suddenly my eyes caught sight of a countenance.

      I held my breath, standing rooted to the spot. What I saw staggered belief. Was it only a chimera of my unbalanced imagination — or was it actual fact?

      For a few seconds I remained undecided. Then, aghast and amazed, I became convinced that it was a stern reality.

      The mystery of the affair at Stretton Street became in that single moment a problem even more than ever bewildering.