’These last words explained a curious smell in the vaults, which we noticed the moment we entered them.  We can only describe the smell by saying that it was of a twofold sort—­faintly aromatic, as it were, in its first effect, but with some after-odour very sickening in our nostrils.  The Baron’s furnaces and retorts, and other things, were all there to speak for themselves, together with some packages of chemicals, having the name and address of the person who had supplied them plainly visible on their labels.  “Not a pleasant place for study,” Baron Rivar observed, “but my sister is timid.  She has a horror of chemical smells and explosions—­ and she has banished me to these lower regions, so that my experiments may neither be smelt nor heard.”  He held out his hands, on which we had noticed that he wore gloves in the house.  “Accidents will happen sometimes,” he said, “no matter how careful a man may be.  I burnt my hands severely in trying a new combination the other day, and they are only recovering now.”

’We mention these otherwise unimportant incidents, in order to show that our exploration of the palace was not impeded by any attempt at concealment.  We were even admitted to her ladyship’s own room—­ on a subsequent occasion, when she went out to take the air.  Our instructions recommended us to examine his lordship’s residence, because the extreme privacy of his life at Venice, and the remarkable departure of the only two servants in the house, might have some suspicious connection with the nature of his death.  We found nothing to justify suspicion.

’As to his lordship’s retired way of life, we have conversed on the subject with the consul and the banker—­the only two strangers who held any communication with him.  He called once at the bank to obtain money on his letter of credit, and excused himself from accepting an invitation to visit the banker at his private residence, on the ground of delicate health.  His lordship wrote to the same effect on sending his card to the consul, to excuse himself from personally returning that gentleman’s visit to the palace.  We have seen the letter, and we beg to offer the following copy of it.  “Many years passed in India have injured my constitution.  I have ceased to go into society; the one occupation of my life now is the study of Oriental literature.  The air of Italy is better for me than the air of England, or I should never have left home.  Pray accept the apologies of a student and an invalid.  The active part of my life is at an end.”  The self-seclusion of his lordship seems to us to be explained in these brief lines.  We have not, however, on that account spared our inquiries in other directions.  Nothing to excite a suspicion of anything wrong has come to our knowledge.

’As to the departure of the lady’s maid, we have seen the woman’s receipt for her wages, in which it is expressly stated that she left Lady Montbarry’s service because she disliked the Continent, and wished to get back to her own country.  This is not an uncommon result of taking English servants to foreign parts.  Lady Montbarry has informed us that she abstained from engaging another maid in consequence of the extreme dislike which his lordship expressed to having strangers in the house, in the state of his health at that time.