The newcomer turned toward him, and his sallow face slowly lightened to the gregarious gleam with which the exile in foreign climes recognizes another who speaks the same language.
“This is a helluva place,” he said emotionally.
It may be acknowledged at once that Simon Templar did not like the face, which was thin and pointed like a weasel’s, with flat brown eyes that shifted restlessly in their orbits, but Simon nodded amiably, and the traveler sank into a chair beside him.
“My name’s Urselli,” he volunteered. “I came out here to look at the neck of the woods where I was born. Ain’t there anyone around in this jernt?”
Simon glanced casually round, and was answered by the reappearance of the girl in the doorway. Mr Urselli stood up.
“Where’s Mr Intuccio?”
The girl turned and called, “Papa!” into the dark room behind her, and presently the innkeeper clumped out — a big black-bearded man in grimy shirt sleeves. Urselli held out a white manicured hand.
“You may not remember me, Salvatore,” he said in halting Italian. “I am Amadeo.”
The innkeeper’s sunken eyes surveyed him impassively, and held the hand with a callused paw.
“I remember. You will drink something?”