"So I see," I replied drily. "However, you removed me from the palace."
"Yes! I called up my two men, and, telling them you were--well--overcome by Bacchus, ordered them to take you to the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele and leave you there. Ecco!"
"Oh, Beltrami."
"Eh, you reproach me. Well, I no doubt deserve your reproaches, but it was the best excuse I could think of, as it doesn't do to trust servants too much. Ebbene! they took you away and left you in the Piazza, where you awoke in the morning?"
"I did, with a confounded headache."
"Ma foi! that was the chloroform, no doubt. Having thus arranged your little matter I went to the pillar and released Guiseppe Pallanza."
"He was not dead, then?"
"No! She gave him ten drops, I tell you. So that, although he was not actually dead, he had all the appearance of a corpse. I could not revive him as I had not the antidote; so, when my two men returned, I had him brought here."
"Here! In this house?"
"Precisely! he is in the next room. We will go and look at him presently. But to continue: the next day I called upon the Contessa, and told her I had seen all, suppressing, however, the fact that I had carried off this unfortunate lover."