“Only just,” said I. I couldn’t help smiling. “Donna Lucinda all but became a Rillington——”
“Ah!” he interrupted. “Now I remember the story. Some visitors from London brought it over in the early days of the war—I think they were propaganda agents of your nation, in fact. It was before Italy made the mis——it was before Italy joined in the war.”
“Donna Lucinda’s maiden name was Knyvett. Her mother and she once rented this very apartment from Arsenio, I believe.”
“Yes, and I think I remember that too.” However, he did not seem to remember too much about it, for he went on. “And so the romance started, I suppose! She’s a very beautiful woman, Mr. Rillington.”
The expression in his eyes justified my next remark. “Whatever else one may say about the poor fellow, he was a devoted lover to his wife, and she was—absolutely true to him.”
“I’m old-fashioned enough to think that that covers a multitude of sins. She’s not, I gather, a Catholic?”
“No, I believe not.”
“A pity!” he said meditatively; whether he was thinking of Lucinda’s soul or of her money, I didn’t know—and I will forbear from speculating. If he was thinking about the money, it was, of course, only with an eye—a bulging eye—on other people’s souls—as well as Lucinda’s.
“Pray, sir,” I asked, on a sudden impulse, “do you know anything of a friend of Arsenio’s here—Signor Alessandro Panizzi?”