The Heads of Cerberus | Page 7

way, were you thinking of carrying the safe
away in your pocket? Or had you a stick of dynamite handy? Well,
some obliging professional comes along and works the combination for
you and leaves the door open. You awaken from pleasant dreams to
find all that was inside, or most of it, lying right at your feet. And what
is it you do? You flee as if from the devil himself, and if I hadn't
stopped you you'd be straying about the streets this minute as near
starvation as you were before!"
Drayton forced a smile for his friend's good-natured raillery. He could
not be angry at ridicule so obviously meant to dissipate
self-condemnation in laughter. "I could hardly begin on you, Terry," he
said. "And speaking of that, I've already enjoyed more hospitality than I
have any right to. I'm cured of crime, Terry; but if you have any idea
that I am going to load myself down on you--"
Springing up with his usual impetuosity, the big Irishman fairly hurled
Drayton back into his chair.
"Sit down! Sit down there where you belong! Is it load yourself you're
talking of? It's to be loaded with me you are! Do you know that my
very life's been threatened?"

"Please don't joke any more, Terry," protested the other wearily.
"I've not gone into details, but all the fun has been crushed out of me in
the last year or so."
"Take shame to yourself, then! But this is no joke. You'll well believe
me it's not when you've heard it all. Stay here now a minute, for I've a
thing to show you."
In no little wonder, Drayton obeyed while Trenmore left the room and
ascended the stairs to his bedchamber. A few minutes later he returned,
and, drawing his chair close to Drayton, dropped into it and disclosed
the thing he had brought. It seemed to be a glass vial. About six inches
in length, it tapered to a point at one end, while the other was capped
with silver, daintily carved to the shape of three dogs' heads. These
heads, with savage, snarling jaws, all emerged from one collar, set with
five small but brilliant rubies. The vial was filled to the top with some
substance of the color of gray emery.
"A pretty little thing," commented Drayton.
"Aye, 'tis a pretty little thing," the other assented, staring down at the
odd trifle with frowning brows. "Now what would you be thinking it
might be?"
"I could hardly say. It looks like a bottle for smelling salts. What is that
stuff inside?"
"Ah, now you're asking! And what do you think of the handsome silver
cap to it?"
"Really, Terry," replied Drayton with a touch of impatience, "I am no
judge of that sort of work. It is intended, I suppose, to represent the
three-headed dog, Cerberus--the one that guarded the gates of Pluto's
realm in the old mythology. The carving is beautiful."
Trenmore nodded. "It is that. And now I'll tell you how I came by it.
You know it's an ignorant, rude man I am; but hid away somewhere

inside me there's a great love for little, pretty, delicate things. And
though I've no real education like you, Bobby, I've picked up one thing
here and another there, and when I happen on some trifle with a bit of a
history it just puts the comether on me, and have it I must, whether or
no.
"Behind that small steel door you saw in the wall of my room I've some
amazing pretty toys that I'd not like to part with. I'll show you them
later, if you care, and tell you the tales that go with them. Did you read
in the paper last month how Thaddeus B. Crane was after dying and all
his great collection to go at auction?"
"I didn't notice."
"You wouldn't. You'd something worse to think of. But I did; so I
remembered this which I had heard the fame of, and to that auction I
went three days running until they came to the thing I wanted. ',' it's
called, just as you named it like the clever lad you are. It's old, and they
say 'twas made in Florence centuries ago. But I'll read you the bit of
description Crane had for it."
He produced a sheet of time-yellowed paper he read. "'Said to have
been carved by Benvenuto Cellini for his patron, the Duke of Florence.
Its contents have never been examined. The legend runs, however, that
the gray dust within it was gathered from the rocks at the gates of
Purgatory by the poet Dante, and that it was to contain this dust that the
duke required the vial. More probably, from a modern viewpoint, the
contents are