Her Royal Highness Part 32

"Beppo and `The Thrush.'"

"That is Beppo Fiola and Gino Merlo--eh?" she remarked. "I thought Gino had been arrested in Sarzana."

"So he was," replied the man, "but he escaped. He is wanted, but the present moment is not an exactly opportune one for his arrest, signorina."

"And they mean evil?"

"Decidedly. The Signor Waldron should be warned."

"How did you discover this, Pietro?" she asked, standing with him in the deep shadow of a disused granary.

"Signorina, a man of my profession has various channels of information,"

was his polite but rather ambiguous reply, his voice entirely altered, for he now spoke in an educated manner. Hitherto he had spoken in the dialect peculiar to the valley of the Tiber, but his last sentence was that of an educated man.

"Ah! I know, Signor Olivieri," she said; "you are a past-master in the art of disguise to come out here and live as a _contadino_."

"For the purpose of obtaining information every ruse is admissable, signorina. This is not the first occasion in my career by many when I have posed as a peasant."

"Curious that Signor Enrico is so friendly with Velia, is it not?" she asked.

"Exactly my thought," replied Pietro Olivieri, the renowned private detective of Genoa, for such he was; "there is some devil's work afoot, but whether it is in connection with the matter we are investigating I cannot yet convince myself. As a field-labourer in madame's service I have been ever on the alert. Fortunately no one has yet suspected me-- for this place is, as you well know, a veritable hot-bed of anarchy and crime; a nest which contains some of the worst and most desperate characters in the whole of Italy. Therefore if I betrayed myself, I fear I should not return to Rome alive."

"But have you no fear?" she asked anxiously. "Not while I exercise ordinary caution. Here, I am Pietro Bondi, a simple, hard-working _contadino_. I take my wine like a man. I gossip to the women, and I interfere with n.o.body. At first when I came here my presence aroused suspicion, but that has, fortunately, now died down."

"You will watch Enrico?"

"Certainly."

"I wonder what his object is in returning here to Borghetto?"

"In order to meet Velia."

"He could have met her more easily in Rome."

"Not if it chanced to be against his interests to be seen in Rome.

Remember he is well-known there."

"So you think he got off the train here instead of going on to the capital?"

"Yes. To see the girl Velia who came here to-night--to meet him and the others."

"The others?" she repeated inquiringly.

"Yes--`The Thrush' and the others."

"To form a plot against the Englishman?" she gasped.

"Exactly, signorina. The Signor Waldron should be warned at once. Will you do so--or shall I send him an anonymous letter?"

"I will see him to-morrow; but--but what can I say without exposing the truth. Come, Signor Pietro, you are a good one at inventing stories."

"Tell him the truth, signorina."

"No," she said, "that is impossible. I--I could never do that. I have reasons for concealing it--strong reasons."

"Then what do you propose doing? If you tell him he is in grave personal danger he will only laugh at you and take no heed of your warning. Englishmen never can understand our people."

"True, but--but really," she asked suddenly, "is there any great danger?"

"I tell you, signorina, that some conspiracy is afoot against your friend," replied the detective who, before entering business on his own account, had been a well-known official at the Prefecture of Police in Genoa. His work lay in the north and he knew very little of Rome, and was therefore unknown. "You requested me to a.s.sist you in this curious inquiry, and I am doing so; yet the further I probe, the deeper and more complicated, I confess, becomes the problem."

"But you do not despair?" she cried anxiously.

"No. I am hoping ere long to see a ray of light through this impenetrable veil of mystery," he replied. "At present, however, all seems so utterly complicated. There is but one outstanding feature of the affair," he added, "and that is the attempt which will a.s.suredly be made upon the life of your friend."

"But why? With what motive?"

"They hold him in fear."

"For what reason?"

"Ah! that, signorina, I am as yet unable to say," was his quick reply.

"If I knew that then we might soon get upon a path which would undoubtedly lead us to the truth."

"We must crush the conspiracy at all hazards, Signor Olivieri," she said quickly. "Remember that Signor Waldron is my friend--my dear friend."

"Then go to him and tell him the truth."

"Ah, no, I cannot!" she cried. "That is quite impossible."

"You know him, I do not," the detective said. "Could you not induce him to leave Italy, say for a few weeks? It would be safer. These men, I tell you frankly, are desperate characters. They will hesitate at nothing."

"But why should they attack an Englishman?" she asked.

"Because he knows--or they think he knows--some secret concerning them.

That is my theory."

"And they intend to close his lips?"

The detective nodded.

"S-h-h-h," he whispered next second. "See yonder"--and he pointed down the hill to where a light had suddenly shone. "Someone is coming across the vineyard. Perhaps it is Signor Enrico--probably it is, I overheard him say something about catching the night mail to Rome. It is due in twenty minutes."

"_Addio_, then," she said hurriedly. "I will manage to warn Signor Waldron if, as you say, it is absolutely necessary," and, taking the peasant's hand in farewell, she ran back to where her car was waiting, and was soon on the road again speeding back over the thirty odd miles which lay between that nest of bad characters and the Eternal City.

While she was hurrying away, without waiting to switch on her lamps, Pietro Olivieri leisurely descended the hill. But as he pa.s.sed on through the grove of dark cypresses a human figure crept stealthily out of the shadows and, looking after him, muttered a fierce imprecation.

The pair who had believed themselves unseen, had been watched by a very sharp pair of eyes!