“Drugged!” exclaimed Teresa.
“But, yes—naturally! What would you have?” smiled Dago George.
Teresa's glove slipped from her lap to the floor. She was deliberate and long in picking it up.
“But why?” There was irritation and censure in her voice now, as she looked up at him and frowned.
“I don't see why! You know nothing of the reasons that prompted my father to write that letter. Why should you drug him? What could you expect to accomplish by that, except to excite his suspicions when he wakes up?”
“Ah, but you do me an injustice, my little bambino!” said Dago George smoothly. “It was but a pinch of the drug, a drug that I know very well, and that never plays tricks on me. He has had but enough to last for four or five hours, and he will experience no ill effects when he wakes up. You can trust Dago George for that. And as for why—what else could I do? It was precisely because I had had no word from Nicolo Capriano, and because it was all a mystery to me, except that the letter was signed con amore. Eh? You know well enough what that means, and that it was not to be disobeyed. The man must never leave my sight or hands until the little game, whatever it was, was played out. Is it not so? It was also necessary that, having nothing further from the old master to guide me, I should look this Signor Barty Lynch over for myself—yes? Is it not so, my little bambino?”
Teresa preserved her frown.
“Perhaps,” she admitted, with well assumed unwillingness. “Well?”
Dago George drew a little closer.
“Well, he is safe upstairs, then. You see that Dago George had his head about him, after all, eh? And now—the letter! What is it that the old master was about to do?”