"Have you got your pipe with you?" asked Malipieri presently. "We must talk over this quietly."
"Yes, sir. Will you hold the iron while I get a light? He might try to jump out, and he may have firearms. Thank you, sir."
Masin produced a short black pipe, filled it and lighted it.
"I was thinking, sir," he said, as he threw away the wooden match, "that if we kill him here we may have trouble in disposing of his body. Thank you, sir," he added as he took over the drill again and made it clang on the stones.
"There will be no trouble about that," Malipieri answered, speaking over the hole. "We can drop him down the overflow shaft in the passage."
"Where do you think the shaft leads, sir?" asked Masin, grinning with delight.
"To some old drain and then to the Tiber, of course. The body will be found in a week or two, jammed against the pier of some bridge, probably at the island of Saint Bartholomew."
"Yes, sir. But the drain is dry now. The body will lie at the bottom of the shaft, where we drop it, and in a few days the cellars will be perfumed."
He laughed roughly at his horrible joke, which was certainly calculated to affect the nerves of the intruder who was meant to hear it. Malipieri began to wonder when the man would give a sign of life.
"We can fill the well by plugging the arch in the outer chamber," he suggested. "Then the water will pour down the shaft and wash the body away."