CHAPTER XII
Benoni had made an impression on me that nothing could efface. His tall thin figure and bright eyes got into my dreams and haunted me, so that I thought my nerves were affected. For several days I could think of nothing else, and at last had myself bled, and took some cooling barley-water, and gave up eating salad at night, but without any perceptible effect.
Nino wrote often, and seemed very much excited about the disappearance of the contessina, but what could I do? I asked everyone I knew, and nobody had heard of them, so that at last I quite gave it over, and wrote to tell him so. A week passed, then a fortnight, and I had heard nothing from Benoni. Nino wrote again, enclosing a letter addressed to the Contessina di Lira, which he implored me to convey to her, if I loved him. He said he was certain that she had never left Italy. Some instinct seemed to tell him so, and she was evidently in neither London nor Paris, for he had made every inquiry, and had even been to the police about it. Two days after this, Benoni came. He looked exactly as he did the first time I saw him.
"I have news," he said, briefly, and sat down in the arm-chair, striking the dust from his boot with his little cane.
"News of the Graf?" I inquired.
"Yes. I have found out something. They never left Italy at all, it seems. I am rather mystified, and I hate mystification. The old man is a fool; all old men are fools, excepting myself. Will you smoke? No? Allow me, then. It is a modern invention, but a very good one." He lit a cigarette. "I wish your Liras were in Tophet," he continued, presently. "How can people have the bad taste to hide? It only makes ingenious persons the more determined to find them." He seemed talkative, and as I was so sad and lonely I encouraged him by a little stimulus of doubt. I wish I had doubted him sooner, and differently.
"What is the use?" I asked. "We shall never find them."
"'Never' is a great word,'" said Benoni. "You do not know what it means. I do. But as for finding them, you shall see. In the first place, I have talked with their banker. He says the count gave the strictest orders to have his address kept a secret. But, being one of my people he allowed himself to make an accidental allusion which gave me a clue to what I wanted. They are hidden somewhere in the mountains."
"Diavolo! among the brigands: they will not be very well treated," said I.
"The old man will be careful. He will keep clear of danger. The only thing is to find them."