



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Closed Book
Concerning the Secret of the Borgias
By William Le Queux
Published by The Smart Set Publishing Company, 452 Fifth Ave, New York.
This edition dated 1904.

The Closed Book, by William Le Queux.

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THE CLOSED BOOK, BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX.

CHAPTER ONE.

WHICH MAINLY CONCERNS A HUNCHBACK.

These strange facts would never have been placed on record, nor would
this exciting chapter of an eventful life have been written, except for
two reasons: first, because the discovery I made has been declared to be
of considerable importance to scientists, bibliophiles, and the world at
large; and, secondly, because it is my dear wife's wish that in order to
clear her in the eyes of both friends and foes nothing should be
concealed, misrepresented, or withheld.

It was, indeed, a memorable day when I halted before the white, almost
windowless house of the prior of San Sisto and knocked twice at its
plain, green-painted door.  The sun-blanched, time-mellowed city of
Florence lay silent, glaring, and deserted in the blazing noon of a July
day.  The Florentines had fled to the mountains for air.  The
persiennes, or sun-shutters, were everywhere closed, the shops shut, the
people slumbering, and the silence only broken by the heat-song of the
chirping cicale in the scorched trees at the end of the Lung Arno.

Like many another Tuscan town, it stood with long rows of high,
frescoed, and sculptured palaces facing the brown river, its magnificent
Duomo and campanile, its quaint fourteenth-century streets, and its
medieval Ponte Vecchio all forming a grim