Part 60 (1/2)

”You walk fast, Stefanone,” answered Griggs. ”You can walk as fast as Lord Redin.”

Stefanone did not show the least surprise. He pressed down the burning tobacco with one h.o.r.n.y finger, and carefully laid the last glowing bit of the burnt-out wooden match upon it.

”For this, we are people of the mountains,” he answered slowly. ”We can walk.”

”Why do you wish to kill that signore?” inquired Griggs, calmly.

Stefanone looked up, and the pale lids of his keen eyes were contracted as he stared hard and long at the other's face.

”What are you saying?” he asked, with a short, harsh laugh. ”What is pa.s.sing through your head? What have I to do with the Englishman?

Nothing. These are follies!”

And still he gazed keenly at Griggs, awaiting the latter's reply. Griggs answered him contemptuously in the dialect.

”You take me for a foreigner! You might know better.”

”I do not know what you mean,” answered Stefanone, doggedly. ”It is Sunday. I am at leisure. I walk to take a little air. It is my affair.

Besides, at this hour, who would follow a man to kill him? It is about to ring midday. There are a thousand people in the street. Those who kill wait at the corners of streets when it is night. You say that I take you for a foreigner. You have taken me for an a.s.sa.s.sin. At your pleasure. So much the worse for me. An a.s.sa.s.sin! Only this was wanting.

It is better that I go back to Subiaco. At least they know me there.

Here in Rome--not even dogs would stay here. Beautiful town! Where one is called a.s.sa.s.sin for breakfast, without counting one, nor two.”

By this time Griggs was convinced that he was right. He knew the man well, and all his kind. The long speech of complaint, with its peculiar tone, half insolent, half of injured innocence, was to cover the fellow's embarra.s.sment. Griggs answered him in his own strain.

”A man is not an a.s.sa.s.sin who kills his enemy for a good reason, Stefanone,” he observed. ”How do I know what he may have done to you?”

”To me? Nothing.” The peasant shrugged his st.u.r.dy shoulders.

”Then I have made a mistake,” said Griggs.

”You have made a mistake,” a.s.sented Stefanone. ”Let us not talk about it any more.”

”Very well.”

Griggs turned away and walked slowly towards the hotel, well aware that Stefanone was watching him and would think that he was going to warn Lord Redin of his danger. That, indeed, was Griggs's first impulse, and it was probably his wisest course, whatever might come of the meeting.

But the Scotchman had made up his mind that he would not see Griggs under any circ.u.mstances, and though the latter had seen him enter the hotel less than ten minutes earlier, the servant returned almost immediately and said that Lord Redin was not at home. Griggs understood and turned away, thoughtfully.

Before he went down the Via Condotti again, he looked over his shoulder towards the steps, and he saw that Stefanone was gone. As he walked along the street, the whole incident began to fade away in his mind, as all real matters so often did, nowadays. All at once he stopped short, and roused himself by an effort--directing his double, as he would have said, perhaps. There was no denying the fact that a man's life was hanging in the balance of a chance, and to the man, if not to Griggs, that life was worth something. If it had been any other man in the world, even that fact would have left him indifferent enough. Why should he care who lived or died? But Dalrymple was a man he had injured, and he was under an obligation of honour to save him, if he could.

There was only one person in Rome who could help him--Francesca Campodonico. She knew much of what had happened; she might perhaps understand the present case. At all events, even if she had not seen Lord Redin of late, she could not be supposed to have broken relations with him; she could send for him and warn him. The case was urgent, as Griggs knew. After what he had said to Stefanone, the latter, if he meant to kill his man, would not lose a day.

CHAPTER XLV.

IT was past midday when Paul Griggs reached the Palazzetto Borgia and inquired for Donna Francesca. He was told that she was out. It was her custom, the porter said, always to breakfast on Sundays with her relatives, the Prince and Princess of Gerano. Griggs asked at what time she might be expected to return. The porter put on a vague look and said that it was impossible to tell. Sometimes she went to Saint Peter's on Sunday afternoon, to hear Vespers. Vespers began at twenty-two o'clock, or half-past twenty-two--between half-past three and four by French time, at that season of the year.

Griggs turned away, and wandered about for half an hour in the vicinity of the palace, uncertain as to what he should do, and yet determined not to lose sight of the necessity for immediate action of some sort. At last he went back to the Piazza di Spagna, intending to write a word of warning to Lord Redin, though he knew that the latter would pay very little attention to anything of such a nature. Like most foreigners, he would laugh at the idea of being attacked in the streets. Even in an interview it would not be easy to persuade him of the truth which Griggs had discovered more by intuition and through his profound knowledge of the Roman character than by any chain of evidence.

Lord Redin had gone out, he was told. It was impossible to say with any certainty whether this were true or not, and Griggs wrote a few words on his card, sealed the latter in an envelope, and left it to be delivered to the Scotchman. Then he went back to the Via della Frezza, determined to renew his attempt to see Francesca Campodonico, at a later hour.